Chapter 1: The Stranger In My Husband's Eyes

IRIS:

They said the accident took everything from him. His memory. His past. His love for me.

But what they didn’t take—what I clung to like a lifeline—was the truth. And I would bury myself in this cursed house before I let them rewrite it.

The Thorne estate loomed like a beast waiting to devour me all over again. Black stone, sharp gates, and silence that screamed. Ivy strangled the walls. Rain hadn’t touched this ground in weeks. It was like the house had made a pact with the darkness.

And now he was home.

A sleek car purred up the gravel path, and the moment I saw the passenger door open, my lungs forgot how to breathe.

Callum Thorne stepped out with the same sharp jawline, the same commanding presence, the same storm-colored eyes that once looked at me like I was the only thing that could calm him.

But now, those eyes didn’t see me. Not really.

They scanned the estate with clinical detachment, like he was visiting a museum. Then they landed on me.

Blank. Cold. Curious.

“Hello,” he said, tone measured. “Do I know you?”

My heart shattered so quietly I was almost impressed with myself.

“I’m your wife,” I said, barely above a whisper.

A pause.

Then a polite smile. “Ah. Right.”

He didn’t believe me. He didn’t feel me. His voice was perfect. Too perfect. Like a well-trained actor reading from a role.

Behind him, Lenora Thorne descended the front steps like the queen she thought she was. Dressed in winter white, untouched by dust or grief.

“Callum, darling, you’re exhausted. Let’s get you inside.”

He nodded, already turning away. My fingers twitched at my sides. I wanted to scream. To shake him. To beg him to remember.

Instead, I stood there, soaked in silence as they disappeared into the house I used to call mine.

---

Later, the manor hummed with artificial calm. I walked through halls that whispered, every portrait watching, every floorboard creaking like a warning.

Callum’s voice echoed from the study. I hesitated near the door, listening.

“She seems familiar,” he said. “But it’s...wrong. Like looking at a dream someone else had.”

Lenora responded smoothly, “Trauma does that. Sometimes your mind protects you by wiping out the poison.”

Poison. That was me, apparently.

I crept back to the east wing, the one they forgot to lock.

Dust choked the air. Moonlight spilled in from cracked windows. The wallpaper peeled like dead skin.

I stepped into our old bedroom. Everything had been stripped. No photos. No clothes. No scent of him on the pillows. Just cold.

But something was wrong.

The drawer in the nightstand was open. Inside, a single object remained: Callum’s emergency phone. The one he used only when he didn’t trust the family’s lines.

I powered it on.

Battery blinking red.

One unsent text lit the screen.

To: Damien

“I found out. She lied. It was all a—”

That was it. Message cut off. No context. Just enough to twist a knife.

Who was “she”?

Me?

Lenora?

Seraphine?

A chill swept down my spine. I pressed the phone to my chest, backing away—when the door slammed shut behind me.

I spun.

Callum stood in the doorway. Unbuttoned shirt. Barefoot. Eyes shadowed.

“You’re not supposed to be in here,” he said.

“I had to know,” I said quietly. “What they’re hiding from you.”

His gaze sharpened. “They said you’d say that.”

He stepped inside, slow and deliberate.

“But there’s something you should know too,” he continued, voice lower now. “When I close my eyes... I see blood. And a woman screaming.”

He looked down at his hands.

“They were covered in it.”

My heart thudded.

“Callum,” I whispered, “you don’t remember what happened.”

He looked up. And for a heartbeat, something flickered in his eyes.

Not memory. Instinct.

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I know this—whoever I was before the crash... he didn’t trust you.”

Before I could speak, the hallway lights flickered and died.

A scream split the night.

Not mine.

It was Lenora.

And when the backup lights flared on, Callum’s shirt was splattered with fresh

blood.

CALLUM:

I used to believe silence was power.

But silence becomes terrifying when it’s in your head. When it swallows years of your life and spits out strangers calling you husband.

I don’t remember Iris.

But my body does.

That night, after the lights flickered and the scream shattered the air, I stood there, shirt soaked in something red and warm, my fists clenched like I’d just finished something I couldn’t name.

Lenora’s scream still echoed down the marble hallways, followed by chaos—footsteps, gasps, a broken glass shattering somewhere in the east wing.

Iris was in front of me, frozen. Her face pale, her lips trembling, but her eyes… they burned. Not with fear. With grief. With fury. With something I might’ve once called love.

But that man—whoever I was before the crash—he’s dead.

“Callum,” she breathed. “That’s not your blood.”

I didn’t know if she was trying to reassure me or herself. I didn’t move. My muscles ached with adrenaline. My mind throbbed, half-conscious of a memory I couldn’t catch.

“You need to come with me—now,” she said.

I followed her down a hidden corridor behind the library—muscle memory more than trust. She moved like someone who’d done it a hundred times. Like someone who knew the house better than anyone… even me.

We emerged into a forgotten study. Books coated in dust. Walls stained with smoke damage.

But what caught my attention was the portrait on the wall.

Us.

Iris and me.

Not posed. Not polished. But real. Her in my lap, my mouth against her temple, her eyes closed with the kind of peace no one could fake.

I walked toward it like it might disappear if I blinked.

“You painted this,” she said quietly. “After Paris.”

The memory was a flicker. A warmth. Gone before I could grab it.

“I don’t understand…” I whispered.

“I know,” she said. “But you will.”

She handed me a file. A stack of reports, receipts, sealed letters.

At the top: a death certificate.

Seraphine Thorne. D.O.D: Three years ago.

I stared at it. “Who is she?”

Iris’s voice was steady. Too steady. “Your first fiancée. Your father arranged it. She died in a fire. They blamed me.”

Another flicker. A scream. Fire. Smoke choking me. A hand slipping from mine.

“They said you ran from the accident,” Iris added, voice colder now. “But you didn’t. You came back. For me.”

My head pulsed, vision blurred. I dropped the file.

“I don’t know what to believe.”

“Then believe this,” she said. “You were investigating your family before the crash. You said you found something.”

I swallowed. “Like what?”

She knelt beside a chest in the corner and unlocked it.

Inside was a leather-bound journal. Mine. I recognized the handwriting instantly.

Every page was covered in a spiral of words, symbols, and names—most crossed out, others circled in red.

At the center of one page:

“It was never about Iris. It was always about Seraphine.”

I stared at it until my breath caught.

“Why would I write this?”

Iris looked up at me, voice trembling for the first time.

“Because Seraphine never died, Callum.”

I turned to her slowly. “What did you just say?”

“She’s alive. And she’s here. In this house.”

I didn’t blink.

I didn’t breathe.

Somewhere deep in my skull, something cracked open—and I saw her face.

Seraphine.

Smiling 

As she pushed me over the cliff.