Chapter 1The Generals Debt Is Paid

In this life, I made a conscious effort to let her pass me by.

When she left the Pentagon through the front entrance, I slipped out the back. When she took her "soulmate" to the movies, I stayed home alone, organizing case files.

In my previous life, I had been a fool. I knew her heart belonged to him, yet I used every ounce of leverage I had to make her marry me. The result? A lifetime of sleeping in separate rooms. We became the military’s most infamous "unhappy couple." She hated me for the schemes I used to have her true love transferred to a remote border outpost. I hated her for marrying me while remaining utterly cold for a decade. Ten years of marriage, and we had carved each other into hollow shells through endless cycles of resentment.

It wasn't until I was diagnosed with terminal bone cancer that she finally softened. She became gentle, attentive, a devoted wife at last. I allowed myself to believe—to hope—that she had finally learned to love me.

But as the final round of chemo failed and my vision began to blur into the dark, she leaned in and whispered the truth.

"The debt I owed your father... I've paid it in full now, Nate."

She looked at me with a weary, clinical pity. "In the next life, I won't marry you. I won't need you or your father to save me. Let’s just let each other go."

When I opened my eyes again, I was back. It was the day of the inter-district personnel transfers.

Without hesitation, I walked into the Chief of Personnel’s office. "Sir, I believe my skill set is better suited for a deployment to the High Ridge frontier outpost."

Charlotte West, this time, I’m leaving your soulmate by your side. I’m giving you back your life.

…

* * *

Colonel Miller looked up from a stack of files, his brow furrowed. "Last month, you filed three separate requests insisting on a post at HQ because your fiancée was stationed here. That’s why we swapped you with Brody."

He tapped a pen against the desk. "The ink is barely dry on the orders, Nate. You want to change it again?"

I pushed the new application across his desk and stood at a sharp, perfect attention. "Reporting for duty, Colonel. I’ve thought it over. I’m volunteering for the High Ridge outpost."

Miller stared at me for a long beat, eventually waving a hand in dismissal. "Fine. Suit yourself. But keep in mind, that’s twelve thousand feet up. It’s brutal. The last guy we sent up there? His girlfriend waited two years before she ran off with a guy from the USO."

I saluted, my face a mask of iron, and walked out.

In the hallway, a group of officers gathered around the bulletin board. Brody’s name was at the top of the list for the HQ staff position. He stood there with his head down, his eyes rimmed with red.

A few junior officers were whispering nearby, their voices laced with sympathy.

"He’s got the highest marks in clinical psychology. If someone hadn't pulled strings..."

"I know, right? He and General West were practically ready to file their marriage intent, and then suddenly—"

The voices cut off abruptly as I approached. A dozen pairs of eyes stabbed at me like serrated blades. I walked through them without a word.

In their eyes, I was the pathetic snake who had stolen another man’s future. But it didn't matter. Soon enough, I would be handing Charlotte West back to him.

In my last life, Charlotte had been ambushed during a tactical mission on the border. My father, defying direct orders, led a rescue team into the hot zone to save her. He took a bullet to the chest and died in the extraction bird.

I used her crushing guilt to force a ring onto her finger. I knew she loved Brody, her childhood sweetheart, so I used my connections to have him shipped to the harshest outpost in the country. I thought if I just gave enough, if I loved her hard enough, I could earn her heart.

I woke up two hours early every morning to prep her briefing materials. I stayed up all night running combat simulations for her. I stocked every drawer in her office with her favorite snacks and the specific ointment she needed for her winter skin.

Slowly, she started letting me straighten her uniform. She stopped pulling away when I reached for her hand. She even agreed to midnight movies. I was convinced she was finally falling for me.

Until the night I collapsed during a training exercise.

Charlotte rushed me to the hospital. She spent the entire night outside the OR, and in doing so, she missed Brody’s emergency distress call from the border. The news hit the next day: Brody’s recon team had been ambushed. He was killed during the retreat.

Charlotte spent three days at the National Cemetery, standing like a statue in front of his headstone. After that, she never spoke his name again.

When my cancer was found after the surgery, she requested a transfer out of active command to care for me for five years. To any outsider, she was the perfect, grieving, devoted wife. Only I knew the truth. The look in her eyes whenever she held my hand wasn't love. It was a ledger. She was simply paying back a debt, cent by agonizing cent.

The bitterness rose in my throat, and I took a long, steadying breath. Not this time. This time, I would give them their happy ending. And in doing so, I would finally save myself.