I Married My Murderer Again

While ordering late-night snacks for my boyfriend, I followed a popular internet joke and messaged the delivery driver to check up on him.

He quickly sent a photo: Your boyfriend seems to be cheating; a woman opened the door.

I was furious and immediately took a taxi to catch him in the act.

But on the way, I encountered a thug, was dragged into an alley, and brutally raped to death.

My boyfriend was devastated and arranged my funeral.

He never married and showed no signs of cheating.

When I opened my eyes again, I was back to the night I ordered takeout for my boyfriend.

I immediately blocked that delivery driver and had a new one deliver the food.

But I still received a call: "Miss, your boyfriend seems to be living with another woman..."

Hearing the delivery drivers voice through the receiver, a violent shudder ripped through my body.

In my past life, it was this exact phone call that sent me spiraling. I had hailed a cab in the dead of night, desperately rushing across state lines to the city where my boyfriend, Miles, was stationed for a work project.

But I never made it to his apartment. Just steps away from his building, I was dragged into a blind alley by a group of men. I was brutalized. I was murdered.

The killers left almost no evidence behind, and the case quickly grew cold. It was Miles who refused to let it go. He hired the countrys most elite private investigators, liquidating every asset he had to fund a relentless manhunt.

Claire, if I hadnt taken that out-of-town project, you wouldnt have missed me. You wouldnt have come looking for me,he had wept at my funeral, his voice shattered. Its my fault. I killed you.

Even if I have to sell my house, even if I have to sell my own kidney, I will find the bastards who did this to you.

He was entirely consumed. By the time he was barely thirty, his hair had turned entirely white from the agonizing, sleepless years on the road. When the perpetrators were finally caught, Miles buried me in his familys private estate, claiming me as his wife in death. He lived the rest of his days utterly alone, guarding my memory. There was never another woman. Never a whisper of infidelity.

Remembering all of this, a heavy, suffocating ache bloomed in my chest.

Miles had loved me with a devotion that transcended death, and yet, here I was, having dared to doubt him.

I abruptly hung up the phone.

I didn't know why this new delivery drivera completely different person from my past life, since I had purposely requested a change on the appwas still trying to smear Miless name. But in this life, I didn't care what anyone said. I would never doubt him again.

After washing my face, I curled up on the living room sofa, letting the quiet dark of the apartment wash over me as I sifted through the fragmented memories of my past life.

Suddenly, the front door clicked open. My best friend, Blair, stepped inside, shaking out her umbrella.

She froze when she saw me in the dim light, her eyes widening. "Claire? Why are you still just lying around?"

"Should I be doing something else?"

Meeting my confused gaze, Blair bit off the rest of her sentence. Her eyes darted to the sidea fleeting, almost imperceptible shift.

Then, she forced a bright smile. "I just meant, with the thunderstorm outside... you know how terrified you are of lightning. I figured you'd be pacing a hole in the floor, not lounging like a cat."

Her tone was warm, dripping with that familiar, protective sincerity.

But my heart turned to lead.

She was lying.

Blair, Miles, and I had been inseparable since our freshman year of college. We were the quintessential trio, bound by promises of lifelong loyalty. I knew Blair just as intimately as I knew Miles. That split-second eye dart? That was her tell.

I opened my mouth to press her, but a piercing ring shattered the silence. My phone.

It was the delivery driver again.

I moved to decline it, but Blair was faster. She snatched the phone from the coffee table, swiped accept, and instantly hit the speaker button.

A gruff, gravelly voice echoed through the room. "Look, lady, Im only speaking up because I saw the 'Happy Birthday, Hubby' note on the cake box. The guy who took this order? He had his arms wrapped around some other girl. It wasnt exactly friendly. Dont let some trash guy play you for a fool."

Before I could process the words, a notification chimed. A video file from the driver in my app messages.

The footage was shaky, shot from the hallway. A door opened just a crack. A man reached out to grab the takeout bags, and a woman was clinging to his bicep, pressing herself against him in a cloying, intimate way.

When the man lifted his chin to thank the driver, the hallway light caught his face perfectly.

It was Miles.

My brow furrowed. The air in the room felt suddenly very thin.

What the hell was going on? The delivery app assigned drivers at random. There was no conceivable way this stranger was in on a prank.

Was Miles actually cheating on me?

While my mind spun, Blair slammed her palm onto the glass coffee table, her face twisting in fury. "That son of a bitch! How dare he do this to you!"

She grabbed my wrist, pulling me up. "Come on, Claire. We are driving over there right now. We are going to catch that cheating bastard and his little tramp dead to rights in that bed. He is going to look you in the eye and give you an explanation!"

She was practically dragging me toward the door. I was still numb, stumbling in her wake, when Blair suddenly doubled over with a sharp gasp.

"Oh my god, it hurts!" she cried out, dropping to her knees, her face draining of color.

A chilling wave of dj vu washed over me.

This was exactly how it happened in my past life. Blair had been absolutely enraged by the infidelity, insisting I go confront him, promising to drive me herself. But right as we reached the front door, she was struck by a sudden, agonizing bout of stomach cramps. She couldn't stop throwing up.

So, I went alone. And I died screaming on the asphalt outside Miless apartment complex.

A terrifying, pitch-black theory began to take root in my mind.

In my previous life, the detectives eventually concluded that my murder wasn't a random mugging gone wrong. It was a premeditated hit. I had been lured to that specific location. But the most maddening part was that the police never caught the mastermind. The thugs they arrested had taken a vow of silence to protect whoever hired them.

We did it on our own! It has nothing to do with anyone else! they had spit at the judge. Give us the chair, we don't care!

So, who was the puppet master?

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting the nausea rising in my throat. I didn't want to follow this thought to its logical, devastating conclusion.

Blair was still groaning on the floor, clutching her stomach, but between her winces, she was looking up at me. Urging me. Pushing me out the door. Beneath the feigned pain, her eyes glittered with a dark, impatient anticipation.

Every word of outrage she had spoken on my behalf suddenly echoed in my ears not as support, but as a death warrant.

I slowly looked down at her. I forced my breathing to slow, keeping my voice utterly level.

"Blair, why are you so desperate for me to leave the apartment tonight?"

I watched her face carefully. "Why are you so absolutely certain theres no misunderstanding? Why jump straight to the conclusion that Miles has betrayed me?"

The color vanished from Blairs lips. She stared at me, her mouth slightly open, entirely speechless.

My heart dropped another agonizing inch.

A heavy, suffocating silence filled the room.

Ring!

My phone lit up again. A FaceTime call. From Miles.

I answered. His face filled the screen, handsome and glowing with that soft, familiar affection. He offered me a gentle, teasing smile. "Hey, babe. Did you order me midnight snacks? Miss me that much?"

He leaned closer to the camera. "I saw the weather app. It's pouring back home, isn't it? You hate the thunder, so I figured Id stay on video with you. Keep you company."

Looking at his tender expression, hearing the soothing cadence of his voice... it had only been a few minutes since I woke up in this timeline, but it felt like an eternity had passed.

Tears prickled the corners of my eyes. I wanted to spill everything to him.

But before I could even form a syllable, a woman's breathy, teasing giggle drifted from the background of his end.

"Babe, let's do Iceland next month, okay?"

I stared at the screen, every muscle in my body locking up.

In the corner of the frame, just for a fraction of a second, I saw a cascade of long, golden-blonde hair.

The next second, Miles's eyes widened in sheer panic. The camera jerked wildly as he practically sprinted out of the room, slamming a door behind him.

Bang!

It felt like a bomb had detonated inside my skull. The ambient noise of the apartment faded into a high-pitched ringing.

Through the phone, Miless voice dripped with manufactured concern. "Claire? Honey, your face just went completely pale. Are you okay?"

Blair had crawled up beside me. She saw the whole thing.

Her face flushed crimson with rage. Without asking, she snatched the phone from my hand, hung up on Miles, and began pacing the room, hurling every curse word in the English language at him.

When she finally ran out of breath, she looked at me with hesitant, pitying eyes. She pulled out her own phone and let out a long, heavy sigh.

"Claire... do you understand now why I wanted you to catch him with your own eyes? I... I wasn't going to tell you this."

She unlocked her phone and pulled up her private message thread with Miles. She held the screen out to me.

My eyes widened in absolute horror.

The screen was filled with paragraphs of sickeningly sweet, obsessive texts. All from Miles. To Blair.

[Blair, that night at the freshman mixer? You were the one I wanted to ask out. But you started talking to that guy from the football team, so I settled for Claire instead.]

[I haven't felt anything for her in years. Honestly, touching her makes my skin crawl. If it weren't for the fact that you pulled away, and the only way I could see you was by staying close to her, I would have dumped that frumpy bore ages ago.]

The timestamps were damning. Even just moments ago, while he was supposedly comforting me about the thunderstorm, he was texting his devotion to my best friend.

[Blair, Im just playing a part with her. You're the only one I love. When I get back from this trip, I'm ending things with Claire. I'm coming for you.]

My hands shook uncontrollably as I tapped on Miless profile picture in her phone. I checked his number, his handle, his linked social accounts.

It was him. No fake accounts. No hacks.

The man who shared my bed, the man who claimed to love me, had been telling my best friend I disgusted him.

Thick, hot tears spilled over my eyelashes and splashed onto the screen. We had been together for almost a decade. How had I been so completely, utterly blind to the monster hiding behind his smile?

But the math still didn't make sense. If he despised me, why did he sacrifice his youth, his sanity, and his wealth to avenge my murder in the past life?

Was it the butterfly effect? Did my decision to stay home tonight change his feelings?

Or was he always cheating, and the tragic, devoted widower routine was nothing but an elaborate, calculated cover-up?

Blair sighed, wrapping her arms around me in a tight, suffocating hug. "Claire, I didn't know how to tell you. Stuff like this... it destroys friendships. Once the truth is out, things are never the same."

"That's why I wanted you to see it for yourself. But if you don't want to go confront him now... we don't have to. Just know that whatever you decide, I am here. I will always support you."

I offered a hollow nod, murmuring something noncommittal. I pulled away from her, walked into my bedroom, and collapsed onto the mattress. I felt like every drop of blood had been drained from my veins.

Too many puzzle pieces were scattered in my mind, and none of them fit.

Was Miles cheating? Why did Blair lie about expecting me to be awake? Who was I supposed to trust?

And the most terrifying question of all: Who was the mastermind who paid to have me butchered in the dark?

Suddenly, a loud, urgent knocking echoed from the front door.

Helen, Miless mother, bustled into the apartment, her face glowing with breathless excitement. She hoisted a massive, velvet-wrapped jewelry box in the air.

"Claire, sweetheart! Look what just arrived. The custom bridal suite is finally ready. Come see!"

She set it on the table, practically vibrating with pride. "Miles said the engagement ring he gave you last year wasn't enough. He knows you grew up in the foster system, that you never had a real family to spoil you. So, he wanted to make sure you felt like a queen."

"He picked every stone himself. It's top-tier platinum and flawless diamonds. He liquidated his entire stock portfolio to pay for this."

The box popped open. A blinding array of diamonds caught the lighta breathtaking necklace, cascading earrings, a tennis bracelet, and a massive, custom-cut ring.

The craftsmanship was so exquisite it felt unreal.

Miles and I had been together for eight years. He had proposed three times. But because I grew up moving between group homes, lacking any blueprint for a healthy marriage, I had always been terrified of taking the final step. I kept stalling.

Before he left for this trip, he had held me tight and laughed gently. "Take all the time you need, Claire. I'm not going anywhere. But I'm buying the wedding jewelry now, and I'm getting you the best in the world. You deserve it."

In my past life, even though I died before we could say our vows, he had placed this exact, impossibly expensive jewelry suite inside my casket.

Later, to fund the private investigators tracking my killers, he had sold his own home.

That unwavering financial sacrifice was the anchor of my trust in him. If a man was truly betraying you, why would he willingly bankrupt himself for your memory?

Seeing my resolve waver, Blair frantically grabbed my arm. "Claire, wake up! You cannot marry this man! Did you already forget what he was doing behind your back ten minutes ago?"

Helens face drained of its joy. Insulted and determined to prove Blair wrong, she whipped out her phone and dialed Miles on FaceTime.

When the video connected, the background noise was chaoticloud music, clinking glasses. Helens voice turned icy. "Miles, what exactly are you doing right now?"

Miless exhausted but cheerful face appeared. "Mom! Hey. The project wrapped up early, so we're celebrating. I threw a little party for the team at the rental."

He panned the camera around the room. There were about seven or eight people in business casual attire holding drinks.

In the corner, the blonde woman from the earlier video was draped over another male coworker, posing for a selfie.

Miles rolled his eyes at the camera and lowered his voice. "She's the new intern. Terrible at her job, completely lacks boundaries with the guys. Mom, please don't tell Claire she's here. You know how Claire hates girls who act like that. I don't want her getting upset over nothing."

Hearing the explanation, Helen let out a massive sigh of relief.

She hung up the phone and studied my face carefully, choosing her words. "Claire... has there been some sort of misunderstanding between you two lately?"

"My son treats you like you hang the moon. He would never do anything to hurt you."

Then, her gaze snapped to Blair, hardening into a glare. "Unlike some people, who threw themselves at my son in college, got rejected, and never quite got over it. People who use the title of 'best friend' just to try and poison my daughter-in-law's marriage!"

I followed Helen's piercing glare. I saw Blairs face turn completely white. I saw the flash of raw, naked panic in her eyes.

In that fleeting second, the fragments of my past life and the bizarre events of tonight slammed together in my mind.

A bolt of lightning illuminated the dark.

I finally understood. I knew exactly what was happening.

And I knew, without a shadow of a doubt, who had ordered my murder.

It was the one person I had never, ever suspected.