Life Wasn't Like This Once

For ten years, a pianist-turned-gunman has stood at the side of Sylvia Fuller, a mafia donna, through every life-and-death situation. When Sylvia turns twenty-eight, she falls for Wilson Hink, a young man she brought back from the slums, and hides him until her husband stumbles upon them at her prenatal check-up. Demanding answers, he is handed a divorce agreement instead: Wilson is a man of religion and needs a legitimate status. When he refuses to give up his position, Sylvia has his paralyzed younger brother Noah dragged beneath a hydraulic press, and he collapses in the gore.

He wakes to find himself back in time, at the moment Wilson accompanies Sylvia to her prenatal check-up. This time he stays silent, contacts an overseas rehabilitation center, and arranges a divorce—only for Sylvia to go mad once he is truly gone.

Hiding around a corner, he hears Sylvia promise Wilson marriage once her pregnancy is stable, and later learns the young man she adores is the man he himself was ten years ago.