Part 1When His Protégée Defused Bombs With Eyes Closed, I Doomed Them All

My husband’s protégée boasted that she could “defuse a bomb by instinct, with her eyes closed.”

Her instincts were wrong. She triggered the bomb’s secondary detonation sequence.

I had to intervene, using the highly dangerous liquid nitrogen cryogenic suspension method to save the entire building.

Eva was removed from active duty and suspended pending investigation.

My husband, Marcus, tried to defend her, but I stopped him. “If you speak up for her now, you won’t just fail to save her; you’ll be suspended right along with her.”

Unable to handle the pressure, Eva staged an “accident” and blew herself up. In her suicide note, she accused Marcus of choosing to save his own skin when she needed him most.

Marcus said nothing. He just kept that letter, treasured, in his study.

Years later, he was a nationally renowned bomb disposal expert. During a terrorist attack, I was strapped with a time bomb. He arrived on the scene to defuse it, but instead, he replicated his protégée’s fatal mistake right in front of me.

He watched the countdown timer and smiled faintly. “See? She was just nervous that day. If I had just encouraged her back then, she would be a hero now.”

The bomb detonated. I was obliterated.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back in that moment, just as he was about to defend his protégée.

He didn’t know that inside that building was the core server holding the nation’s most sensitive intelligence.

* * *

The instant I realized I had been reborn, I turned on my heel. Instead of rushing to the scene, I went straight back to my dorm and switched off my encrypted communicator.

In my past life, after Eva’s screw-up, she had spammed me with frantic messages, begging me to save her. I had just come off a special operation—seventy-two hours without sleep—and had to go clean up her mess. I risked my life, enduring the searing cold of liquid nitrogen, just to save that core server.

It was only because of my success that the military brass didn't court-martial Eva, merely suspending her for investigation. If she had just kept her head down, she could have been reinstated. But she was fragile. A few snide remarks from colleagues were all it took. She staged an accident and killed herself.

And in the end, my husband, in his twisted attempt to vindicate her, got me blown to pieces.

I pulled the covers over my head and slept until morning.

The next day, I switched my communicator back on. The screen exploded with hundreds of missed calls and blood-red emergency alerts.

I took my time washing up, changing into my uniform, and made my way to the site at a leisurely pace.

Outside the police cordon, the air was thick with a tension so heavy it felt like it could liquefy. Desperation was etched on every face.

Eva was on the ground, hair disheveled, shaking uncontrollably. The colleagues surrounding her looked like they wanted to tear her apart.

“It’s all your fault, Eva! You and your stupid ‘instinctive defusal’!”

“Now look what you’ve done! The secondary detonation is active! We’re all going to die!”

“Just wait! General Harding will have us all court-martialed for this!”

Eva’s eyes darted wildly through the crowd. When she saw me, a flicker of hope ignited, as if she were grasping at a lifeline. But it was instantly replaced by a deep, seething resentment.

She pointed a trembling finger straight at me and shrieked with all her might, “It was her! It was Sienna! I called her all night! She could have saved us! She deliberately turned off her communicator! She wants us all to die!”

In an instant, every gaze in the crowd turned on me, a thousand sharp knives.

Seizing the moment, Eva stumbled to her feet and shoved her communicator in my face. The screen was a damning list of missed calls. Her eyes were bloodshot, her voice a raw, broken cry.

“Sienna! You know what’s in that building better than anyone! This is a matter of national security! How could you go dark at a time like this? What were you thinking?”

The crowd fell silent, waiting for my explanation.

I looked at her disgusting, contorted face, and the hatred of a past life surged through me.

Then, I raised my hand.

CRACK!

The sharp, clean sound of my palm connecting with her cheek echoed in the tense silence.

Eva stared at me, stunned, her hand flying to her stinging face.

I shook out my tingling hand, my voice like ice. “Are you insane?”