The smell hit her the moment she opened the front door of the row house in Astoria. Stale cigarette smoke, old frying oil, and despair.

"You're back."

Brenda, her stepmother, didn't look up from the TV. She was painting her toenails on the coffee table. "Did you bring the money? Your dad owes Tony three grand."

Tiffany, her stepsister, was lounging on the sofa, scrolling on her phone. She eyed Anaya's Balenciaga bag with naked envy. "Is that new? Can I have it?"

Anaya walked past them, her heels clicking on the linoleum. She went to the back room.

Her father, Earl, was passed out on the recliner. The TV was blaring a horse racing channel. He looked old, broken, and pathetic.

Anaya felt a pang of pity, but she strangled it. Pity was what had kept her tethered to this sinking ship for a decade. Pity was why she had almost been assaulted by a loan shark in her last life, trying to pay off Earl's debts.

She walked back to the living room.

Brenda stood up, blocking her path. She held out a greasy business card. "Tony said if you go to dinner with him, he might waive the interest. He likes you, Anaya. You should be nice to him."

Anaya took the card. She looked at it. Tony's Auto Repair & Loans.

She remembered the dinner. She remembered Tony's hands under the table. She remembered running out into the rain, sobbing.

She ripped the card in half. Then in quarters. She let the pieces flutter to the floor.

"Hey!" Brenda screeched. "You ungrateful little-"

Anaya slammed a folder onto the coffee table. The sound made Tiffany jump.

"This is the deed transfer," Anaya said, her voice cutting through the room like a knife. "I am signing over my half of the house to you. It's worth two hundred thousand dollars in equity."

Brenda's eyes widened. Greed instantly replaced anger. "You... you're giving us the house?"

"In exchange for this." Anaya pulled out a second document. Emancipation and Severance of Familial Ties. It wasn't a standard legal form, but it was binding if notarized. "And a promise that you never contact me again."

"Why would we sign that?" Tiffany sneered. "We can just take the house and still call you for money."

Anaya pulled out her phone. She tapped the screen and played a recording.

It was Brenda's voice. "...yeah, just forge Earl's signature on the insurance policy. If he drinks himself to death, we get double indemnity."

Brenda's face went white.

Anaya had recorded it years ago-or rather, she would have recorded it in the future. But in this timeline, she knew exactly where Brenda kept her diary detailing the scheme. She had snapped photos of the pages before coming downstairs.

"I have photos of your diary, Brenda," Anaya lied smoothly, bluffing with the truth of the future. "Sign the paper. Or I go to the cops for conspiracy to commit insurance fraud."

Earl stirred in the other room. "Anaya? Is that my girl? Do you have twenty bucks?"

Anaya didn't look toward his voice. That part of her was dead.

Brenda snatched the pen. Her hands were shaking. She signed the document.

Anaya took the paper, checked the signature, and put it in her bag.

"Goodbye, Brenda," she said. "Enjoy the house. The bank is foreclosing in three months anyway."

She walked out.

"You bitch!" Brenda screamed after her.

Anaya stepped out onto the sidewalk. The Queens air felt lighter.

She got back into the waiting taxi. "New Jersey," she told the driver. "Nana Rose's house."

As the car crossed the bridge, her phone buzzed. A notification from her banking app.

ALERT: Your secondary credit card ending in 4490 has been frozen by the primary account holder.

Barrett. He was cutting off her money. He thought that would bring her crawling back.

Anaya reached into her wallet. She pulled out the black Amex Centurion card. It was heavy, made of titanium.

She rolled down the window. The wind whipped her hair. Below, the East River churned, dark and murky.

She flicked the card. It spun in the air, catching the last rays of the sun, before disappearing into the water. He thinks this is his power over me, she thought with cold satisfaction. He has no idea about the crypto wallet, about the knowledge I hold. This card isn't a lifeline; it's a leash. And I'm cutting it myself.

She had her own money now. She had the knowledge of the next three years of market trends. She didn't need his.

She needed to disappear.

Monday morning at Meyers Media was a catastrophe.

"Anaya!" Barrett yelled, staring at the empty desk outside his office.

Silence answered him.

A terrified temp assistant hurried in, spilling coffee on the saucer. "Sir? I... I don't know where the files are."

Barrett swept the cup off his desk. It shattered against the wall.

"Get out!"

The temp fled.

Barrett ran a hand through his hair. He was unraveling. The office was in chaos. The Townsend merger was stalling because the due diligence team had found "irregularities" in the logistics subsidiary-exactly what Anaya had warned him about.

How did she know?

The door opened. His PR director, Marcus, walked in, looking pale.

"Boss, we have a problem. The video from the Hamptons. It's on TMZ."

Barrett stared at the tablet Marcus handed him. There it was. Anaya, looking like a vengeful goddess in a summer dress, shoving Adele into the pool. The paper airplane landing.

The comments were brutal. But not for Anaya.

"Finally someone pushed that plastic doll."

"Who is the girl in the dress? She's iconic."

"Townsend's lawyers want a statement," Marcus said. "They drafted this. It condemns Anaya as a disgruntled, violent ex-employee."

Barrett looked at the draft. It called Anaya "unstable" and "jealous."

He picked up his pen. He should sign it. It was the smart business move.

But he remembered the look in Anaya's eyes at the pool. It wasn't jealousy. It was indifference.

He threw the pen down. "Bury it. No statement."

"But sir-"

"I said bury it!"

That night, Barrett drove his Aston Martin too fast on the LIE. The rain was coming down in sheets, mirroring the storm inside his head.

He reached for his phone to call Anaya again. He needed to hear her voice. He needed to yell at her, or maybe beg her. He didn't know which.

The car hydroplaned.

The world spun. Metal screeched against concrete. The airbag deployed with a punch to his face that knocked him into darkness.

In a cozy kitchen in New Jersey, Anaya was kneading dough. Nana Rose sat in her rocking chair, knitting.

"You okay, child?" Nana asked.

"I'm fine, Nana."

Anaya's phone rang. A strange number.

She answered. "Hello?"

"Ms. Rowe? This is the OnStar emergency service. We have a crash alert for a vehicle registered to Barrett Meyers. You are listed as the primary emergency contact."

Anaya's hands paused in the flour. She remembered the day she'd set that up. Barrett had tossed her the keys and said, "Handle this," too important to fill out his own paperwork. He never would have thought to change it. He never thought she would leave.

In her past life, she would have been in the car. Or she would have been rushing to the hospital, sobbing, holding his hand while he yelled at her for his own reckless driving.

She looked at the flour on her fingers.

"Is he alive?" she asked.

"The paramedics are on scene. He is conscious but disoriented."

"Good," Anaya said. "You have the wrong number."

"Ma'am? The system says-"

"His fiancée is Adele Townsend. Call her. And remove my number from your database."

She hung up.

She tapped the screen and blocked the number. Then she went back to the dough. She pressed her palms into it, folding it over, burying the past.

Barrett woke up in the ER. His head throbbed.

"Anaya?" he croaked.

His assistant, Marcus, was standing by the bed. He looked uncomfortable.

"Sir... Ms. Rowe... we called her."

"Where is she?" Barrett tried to sit up.

"She said to call Ms. Townsend. She hung up on the operator."

Barrett froze. The pain in his head was nothing compared to the hollow ache in his chest. She didn't come. She didn't care.

The door flew open. Adele rushed in, followed by a photographer.

"Oh, my poor darling!" Adele cried, posing perfectly by the bedside. "Did you get the shot?" she hissed at the photographer.

Barrett looked at Adele. He looked at the camera lens.

Suddenly, a vision flashed in his mind. A cold, gray cell. Anaya, curling on a cot, alone. Dying alone.

It was so vivid, so real, it made him nauseous.

He pulled his hand away from Adele.

"Get out," he whispered.

The VIP room at Mount Sinai was quiet, but Barrett couldn't sleep.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw her.

Not the Anaya who pushed Adele. But a different Anaya. Thinner. Her hair lackluster. Wearing an orange jumpsuit.

The Dream:

She was standing behind bars. She turned to look at him. Her eyes were empty sockets.

"You promised," she whispered. "You said twenty million dollars."

Then, she coughed. Blood splattered onto his hands. Warm, sticky blood.

Barrett jerked awake, gasping.

The heart monitor beeped rapidly. Beep-beep-beep.

Dr. Evans rushed in. "Mr. Meyers? Are you in pain?"

Barrett looked at his hands. They were clean. But he could feel the phantom warmth of the blood.

"Doctor," Barrett said, his voice shaking. "Is it possible for a concussion to cause... incredibly vivid nightmares? Nightmares that feel like memories?"

Dr. Evans checked his pupils. "You have a mild concussion, Barrett. And you're under immense stress. The brain plays tricks."

The door opened. Adele walked in. She was carrying an Hermès bag and a thermos.

"Barrett, darling," she said, her voice grating on his nerves like sandpaper. "The board is panicking. The stock dropped two points because of the accident. We need to post a selfie. Show them you're strong."

Barrett looked at her. Really looked at her.

In his nightmare, just before Anaya died, he had heard Adele laughing in the background.

"Is that all you care about?" Barrett asked. " The stock price?"

Adele blinked. "It's our future, Barrett. Don't be naive."

"Get out," he said.

"Excuse me?"

"I said get out! Leave me alone!"

Adele huffed, grabbed her bag, and stormed out.

Barrett ripped the IV tape off his hand. He ignored the sting. He grabbed his phone.

He dialed Anaya.

Call failed. Blocked.

He threw the phone across the room. It cracked against the wall.

"Marcus!" he yelled.

His assistant ran in.

"Get me a burner phone. Now. And find out where she is."

Ten minutes later, Marcus handed him a cheap prepaid phone. "She's in New Jersey, sir. At her grandmother's house. But... there was a search history on her work laptop before she wiped it. 'Investment Visas for Portugal'."

"She's leaving the country?" Barrett felt a spike of pure terror.

He dialed her number on the burner phone. His fingers trembled.

Ring... Ring...

"Hello?"

Her voice was cool, calm. Like water.

Barrett let out a breath he didn't know he was holding. "Anaya."

Silence on the other end.

"Why did you block me?" he asked. It was the wrong thing to say. He knew it instantly. He sounded possessive, controlling. But he couldn't help it.

"Mr. Meyers," she said.

The formality was a slap in the face.