The Echo She Chose To Erase

I was Aegis's top operative, betrayed by my fiancé, Hazen, and the very woman I had rescued and mentored, Bianca.

They conspired against me, framing me as unstable and jealous. Hazen, the man I was supposed to marry, chose to believe her calculated lies over my raw pain, even after he caught them together.

He pushed me, causing a head injury, and then publicly condemned me when I tried to expose Bianca's manipulation. My own partner, my friends, everyone I had saved and fought alongside, turned against me, siding with the "fragile" victim she pretended to be.

Hazen's final betrayal was the coldest. He had me tortured, then left me broken in a cell, all to protect Bianca's fabricated innocence. "You are a liability, Echo," he had said, his eyes devoid of love, "a dangerous, unstable liability."

I was left with nothing, my spirit shattered, my entire life a lie. The accusations, the abandonment, the sheer injustice of it all-it was a poison I couldn't live with.

So I did the only thing I could. I walked into a clandestine clinic and had them erase it all.

Now, I am Evelyn, a quiet bookseller in Vermont. I remember nothing. And today, three years later, a man with haunted eyes just walked into my shop and called me by a name I don't know: "Echo?"