Part 2I Died Once, Now I’m Here to Make Them Pay

I drove Brenda to the hospital at a reckless speed. It was Metropolitan General, the very same hospital where my husband, Grayson, was a star surgeon.

Outside the operating room, a nurse rushed out. “Are you Cassandra Pierce’s family? The patient has lost a critical amount of blood, and the wound is dangerously close to the heart. We need to operate immediately! I need a signature!”

Brenda’s knees buckled. I caught her before she could collapse.

Her hand shook violently as she scribbled her name, her voice choked with sobs. “Please, I’m begging you, save my daughter! She’s only in her twenties!”

“Mom, don’t panic,” I reminded her, my voice clear and steady. “Isn’t Grayson the best cardiac surgeon in the entire city?”

“If he performs this surgery, I know Cassie’s heart will be perfectly fine.”

I pulled out my phone, making a show of dialing his number.

“Don’t call him!”

She lunged for my phone like a cornered cat, her eyes wide with panic.

She knew. She knew Grayson wasn’t at the hospital. He was on the coast with his childhood sweetheart, Sophie Hale, living out a romantic fantasy. Before he left, he had made her promise that no one would disturb them.

I twisted my wrist, easily dodging her grasp.

“Why not?” I asked, my eyes wide with manufactured innocence. “Mom, don’t you want Cassie’s surgery to be a success? This is a matter of life and death!”

The accusation hung in the air, and Brenda’s face flushed a deep, ugly red.

“Don’t you dare curse Cassie! I… I just… I just think her condition probably isn’t serious enough to need Grayson to personally operate!”

She stammered, her eyes darting around, refusing to meet mine.

Just then, the OR doors swung open again.

A younger nurse rushed out, her face pale with stress. “This is bad! The blade penetrated too deep. Our chief of surgery says this procedure is too complex. Dr. Grayson Pierce is the only one in the entire hospital who can do it!”

The nurse’s eyes landed on us, a desperate plea in her gaze.

“You’re his family, right? You have to get him to cut his vacation short. He needs to come back and perform this surgery right now!”

I feigned utter shock, turning to the nurse with disbelief.

“What? On vacation?”

“Are you sure you have that right? How could my husband be on vacation without me knowing? He told me just last night that the department was swamped and he’d be working consecutive shifts for days!”

The nurse looked confused. “I wouldn’t know the details. The chief approved his leave request. All I know is you need to contact him. The patient is running out of time. Any longer, and it might be too late.”

Brenda’s world seemed to implode. The color drained from her face, and she swayed on her feet, about to faint.

I grabbed her arm, my voice laced with panic. “Mom, stay calm. I’ll call Grayson right now.”

In front of everyone, I dialed his number.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Ten agonizing calls, and each time, the same cold, robotic voice echoed from the speaker: “The number you have dialed is currently unavailable.”

Of course it was unavailable.

To ensure his precious time with Sophie was uninterrupted, Grayson had blocked me.

I remembered it all too clearly. In my last life, I had called him forty-nine times from my own phone.

I finally had to borrow a nurse’s phone to get through.

I had wept, begging him to come back and save his own sister.

But his reply was a snarl of irritation. “Ivy, just because you hate Sophie and you’re jealous that I’m with her, you’d make up a lie about my sister dying? You’re so fucking evil. Why don’t you just die?”

He hung up.

After that, it didn’t matter whose phone I used. He never picked up again.

And so, Cassie missed the golden window for survival. She died.

But her family laid the blame squarely on my shoulders. They claimed my jealousy had clouded Grayson’s judgment, preventing him from returning in time.

The person who killed Cassie, they decided, was me.

The memory of that suffocating injustice made my hands clench into tight fists. I fought to control the rage boiling inside me.