Chapter 1

"Dr. Kingsley, an emergency case just came in—severe hemorrhage in a pregnant woman. Please head to the operating room immediately."

The voice of the on-call nurse jolted me, sending a chill down my spine.

I turned to glance at the electronic clock in the hospital corridor. It was the exact time my wife, Clara Dwyer, had been rushed to the hospital with severe bleeding in my previous life.

My throat tightened involuntarily. I had been reborn.

The nurse's voice on the phone grew more urgent as I remained silent.

"Dr. Kingsley, please hurry to the operating room. The patient has already been brought in."

…

In my previous life, as soon as I received the nurse's call, I had rushed over without a moment's hesitation. It wasn't until I reached the operating table that I realized the hemorrhaging patient was my own wife, Clara, in the late stages of her pregnancy.

Not long before that, we had spoken on the phone. She had told me she was at home doing her nightly yoga routine. So how had she ended up here, bleeding so profusely?

There was no time to think. Her vitals began to drop rapidly, and signs of shock were setting in.

I had forced myself to suppress the rising tide of panic and confusion, channeling all my focus and skill into pulling her back from the brink of death. Somehow, I had succeeded. I had saved her.

The moment the surgery was over, I sought out the intake nurse to learn what had happened. That was when I discovered another man had been brought to the hospital alongside Clara—her childhood friend, Simon Wheaton.

Suddenly, all my doubts found an explanation.

Moments later, Simon stormed into my office with a group of people. Before I could react, they pinned me to the floor and snapped both my hands.

"You let her die on purpose because of your jealousy! A doctor without ethics like you deserves nothing but hell!" He raged, accusing me of negligence that had led to a double fatality—my wife and her unborn child.

I was stunned. "That's impossible! I saw her vitals stabilize after the surgery!" I had protested, but he wouldn't listen.

He slammed a death certificate onto my desk. "You killed Clara on the operating table out of spite!"

Desperate to prove my innocence, I planned to request an autopsy as her husband. That was when my in-laws, who had always treated me like a son, arrived.

Finally, I had thought, someone would stand by me, help me clear my name.

But my hopes were dashed when my father-in-law, standing right in front of the police, declared, "I can smell the alcohol from here! Officer, he was drunk while operating. Arrest him immediately!"

To my shock, the police found two empty liquor bottles in my desk drawer. They bore only my fingerprints. Worse, alcohol was detected in my bloodstream.

No matter how much I had protested, my words were useless. Stripped of my medical license, I was sentenced to fifteen years in prison for operating under the influence, resulting in the death of two lives.

I had endured every grueling day of my sentence, fueled by the questions that gnawed at me.

When I was finally released, the truth revealed itself in the most brutal way.

There, on the street, was Clara—alive. She held hands with Simon, and a boy who looked just like him stood between them. The three of them looked every bit the picture of a happy family.

The questions that had haunted me for fifteen years fell into place in an instant, clarity piercing through like a blade.