All Chapters of REBIRTH: THE BILLIONAIRE'S DEAD WIFE : Chapter 1 - Chapter 10

The rain came down without mercy. It slammed the windshield until the road dissolved into silver and black, and the wipers couldn’t keep up. Every few seconds another set of headlights would break through the downpour, it was too bright, too close, and then vanish again.Ava’s hands were locked around the steering wheel. On the passenger seat her phone vibrated. Once. Twice. Three times. She didn’t have to look. She already knew who it was. A dry, humorless laugh escaped her. The phone buzzed again. Ava told herself it didn’t matter, but curiosity won over pride. She glanced down. The screen lit up with a photo and cold shot through her fingers.It was Lila. Her younger sister. Smiling straight into the camera, her head resting against Adrian’s shoulder. His arm was around her waist in a way that looked easy, like it belonged there. Not a sister and a brother-in-law. Ava stared. Her chest tightened until it hurt. Then her gaze drifted to Adrian. He wasn’t smiling. He wasn’t even looki

Ava spent the entire morning avoiding Adrian. It was ridiculous. This was her house. Her bedroom. Her marriage. And yet she moved through the Laurent estate like someone waiting for permission to exist there. Every time she saw him, two completely different versions of the same man appeared in her mind.The first was the cold and distant Adrian Laurent. The husband who stopped coming home early. The man who stopped answering her calls. The man she blamed for every lonely night and every painful rumor. Then there was the man from the rain. The man with shaking hands. The man who held onto her like losing her would destroy him.Ava hated that version of him. Not because he was cruel, but because he made everything complicated. If Adrian was heartless, she could hate him. If he had betrayed her, she could leave without looking back. But if she was wrong… if she had spent a year building her hatred around a truth that wasn’t real… then what had she been fighting all this time?Ava pushed

Ava didn't sleep. The message remained on her phone screen long after midnight. ‘YOU WEREN'T SUPPOSED TO SURVIVE. ‘Every time she locked the screen, she still saw the words anyway. By morning, her nerves felt raw. A door closing somewhere down the hall made her flinch. A phone ringing in the distance made her heart jump. Someone knew. Not just about the accident. Not just about her death. About her survival. About something she still didn't understand. The thought should have frightened her. Instead, it made her angry. Angry at the unknown person hiding in the shadows. Angry at the missing pieces. Angry at herself for spending weeks wondering whether Adrian was the enemy when there were clearly larger questions waiting to be answered. She needed facts. Not assumptions. And Adrian's office was the obvious place to start. The opportunity came shortly after lunch. Adrian had left for an external meeting, and his assistant mentioned he wouldn't be back until late afternoon. Ava wait

Ava waited until she heard Adrian's footsteps disappear upstairs before she left her room and walked straight to the study. Victor's warning followed her down the hall and sat heavy in her chest. I warned you this would happen. She closed the door behind her and opened her laptop. The insurance records from the year of her accident were buried beneath vehicle registrations, maintenance reports, and old company claims. Ava started with the date, then searched by vehicle, and finally typed in the VIN from the accident report. A file loaded. She clicked it open. The report said: Single-vehicle collision. Loss of control. Vehicle recovered from the roadside. Ava scanned the page and found nothing she hadn't already seen, so she moved to close it. That was when she noticed an inspection report attached beneath the claim. She leaned in. Brake system: compromised prior to collision. Her stomach dropped. She opened the full report. The inspector had examined the vehicle after the crash,

Lila didn't move for a long moment. Then she set the phone down on the counter, face up, like touching it any longer might make it worse."Who has this number?" Ava asked."I don't know.""Nobody?""I said I don't know." Lila's voice cracked on the last word, and she pressed her palm flat against her mouth for a second before she spoke again. "I need you to leave. Not because of you. I just need to think."Ava didn't argue. She hugged her sister, longer than either of them was used to, and left with the number still glowing behind her eyes the whole drive home.By the next afternoon, Ava had something useful.The number belonged to a prepaid phone. Untraceable on its own, except the carrier records showed it had pinged off a tower near the Laurent family's old downtown offices three times in the last two weeks.Ava sat with that fact for a full day before she did anything about it.The building still belonged to the family, technically. Marcus Laurent kept an office there, the kind he