Garland’s POV

Then she’d push me away, saying, “I’m going to take a shower.”

That was how our days went—for eight long years… until a business party a year ago.

Someone spiked Cherity’s drink. Disoriented, she ended up sleeping with Barrett Durnam, the underprivileged student I had sponsored.

It was as if the gears of fate suddenly shifted. Everything started spiraling out of control.

In my past life, when Cherity found out she was pregnant, she became obsessed—desperately looking forward to the twins’ birth, longing for a family.

She was even willing to hide her lover in a gilded cage.

When I caught them, she didn’t offer a single word of explanation.

Instead, she coldly demanded a divorce.

It wasn’t until I died that I learned the truth.

She had long since fallen in love with someone else.

So this time, I wouldn’t crash their baby’s one-month celebration.

Instead, I myself called the lawyer.

“Please draft a divorce agreement. Yes, the sooner the better.”

I chose to let her go and let her be with her lover.

I thought that as long as I stayed out of their affair this time—if I willingly agreed to the divorce—I could avoid another disaster.

But I didn’t expect that half an hour later, Cherity kicked down my door in a rage.

“Garland!”

Her eyes were bloodshot as she stormed in, grabbing my chin with brutal force.

“Talk! What did you do to Barrett? Where the hell is he?”

I stared into her eyes in shock, my breath catching in my throat.

“I didn’t. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

Clearly, in this life, I hadn’t gotten involved between them at all.

Weren’t they supposed to be hosting their baby’s celebration in their private villa right now?

Suddenly, Cherity let out a cold, mocking laugh.

“Cut the act. I know you were reborn,” she spat.

“Last time, you’d rather die than sign the divorce papers—all because you couldn’t let go of your status as the head of the Windermeres. Now you knew today was our baby’ celebration, so you used that damn sponsorship to threaten Barrett into disappearing, didn’t you?”

I was so stunned I couldn’t even speak.

She gripped my neck tighter, cutting off the last of my air. I clawed at her hand, my chest heaving as I struggled.

I choked out, “You’ve got it all wrong! I swear… I don’t know anything—”

“Garland,” she hissed, “my patience has limits.”

Then she flung me aside and barked orders at the bodyguards. They tied me up while she stood there, unreadable, lighting a cigarette.

“I’ll give you five minutes. Tell me where Barrett is. Or I’ll make sure you lose the only family you have left.”

My head snapped up, my eyes blazing red. “Don’t you dare!”

My parents died when I was young. The only family I had left was my younger brother Ashwyn. We relied on each other to survive.

Cherity understood human nature all too well.

She knew exactly where my weak spot was.

But my brother had already paid the price once. There was no way I’d let her drag him down again.

I dropped to my knees with a thud, begging her with everything I had.

“Cherity, please. For the sake of the eight years we were married, believe me—just this once,” I began.

“I didn’t do anything to Barrett,” I said. “I don’t know where he is. I’ve already agreed to the divorce. Ask the lawyer if you don’t believe me!”

I was frantic to prove my innocence, but Cherity just stared at me, her eyes like ice.

She let out a sharp laugh.

“You think lying like this will buy you time? If you’d been so willing to divorce me in our past lives, your brother wouldn’t have died right in front of you!”

The next thing I knew, she pressed the lit end of her cigarette into my collarbone.

A wave of searing pain hit me, and I couldn’t stop the groan that tore from my throat.

But her gaze just stayed merciless.

“It hurts, doesn’t it?” she sneered. “Barrett’s gone. The pain I feel? It’s a thousand times worse than this.”

She glanced at the burn she’d left on my skin. Something flickered in her eyes before she finally tossed the cigarette away.

Garland’s POV

Her voice turned hoarse as she questioned me again. “You know how much Barrett means to me. Tell me—where is he?”

I was utterly hopeless, shaking my head frantically. “I told you, I really don’t know! Instead of wasting time interrogating me, why don’t you send someone to go look for him?!”

Cherity was silent for a long while, then she said coldly, “Bring Ashwyn here.”

My breath hitched. A wave of hopelessness crushed over me.

Ashwyn had been a teacher at an international school. He was still in class when Cherity’s men came and dragged him away.

Now, standing in front of me with a confused look on his face, he asked, “Bro, what’s going on? Why are you kneeling?”

I shut my eyes for a moment, then rushed over and grabbed onto Cherity’s pants, begging her, completely lowering myself.

“I’ll do whatever you want! You can even take my life. Just please… let my brother go!”

But her expression remained as cold as stone.

In a panic, I grabbed the fruit knife from the table, pressing the tip hard against my neck—just a bit more pressure, and it would slice through the artery.

“I swear on my life,” I cried out, “if I ever did anything to Barrett, may I bleed out and die right here!”

I asked, “Cherity, didn’t you say that no matter what happened, you’d believe me?”

My voice started to break, trembling with sobs.

“I don’t want anything anymore. I don’t want to be the head of this family! I don’t want my status and name. I don’t even want you anymore…”

Cherity frowned slightly, as if weighing the truth in my words.

Just then, the nanny burst in, holding a wailing baby in her arms.

“Ma’am, where is Sir Barrett? The baby keeps crying for her daddy. He’s never been gone this long. Could something have happened to him?”

The warmth that had started to return to Cherity’s face vanished instantly.

She barked, “Tie Ashwyn up and drag him to the rooftop!”

Then she turned her sharp gaze on me. “Garland, you get one last chance to speak. If you still won’t tell me, I won’t hesitate to let you watch your brother die in front of you—again.”

I was beyond despair, completely drained.

I thought to myself, ‘If she really dares kill my brother, I’ll drag her up that rooftop with me and take her to hell!’

Just as the bodyguards began to move, her assistant ran in, breathless and holding up a phone.

“Ma’am! We’ve found Sir Barrett!” he reported.

Cherity finally located Barrett at a church on the outskirts of Newark.

He was kneeling in front of the altar.

“What do I do, oh Lord?” he cried. “I did something terrible… I never wanted to steal Garland’s woman. I tried everything to stop it, but Cherity insisted on keeping the baby.”

“Lord, do you think I’m an ungrateful traitor too?” he asked. “Garland supported my studies for years, and I turned on him like a bastard. Oh, he must hate me to death! I might as well just die…”

He had taken Cherity’s gun when he snuck out and was now holding it to his head.

But he didn’t even know how to pull the trigger. He fumbled around, completely overwhelmed.

The next second, she rushed in and snatched it away from him.

In one swift motion, she pulled him into her arms.

Even though I was tied up and dragged to the church gates, I could still hear her ragged, panicked breathing from afar.

“It’s okay now. It’s okay…”

Her face was pale with worry as if she wanted to absorb him into her body, to protect him with everything she had.

“Oh, babe, you absolute fool…”

Barrett kept sobbing, trying weakly to break free. But eventually, he collapsed tearfully in her arms, looking heartbreakingly pitiful.

I had imagined that scene countless times in my head.

But even knowing it would happen didn’t stop the sharp, suffocating pain from stabbing through my chest when I finally saw it with my own eyes.

Garland’s POV

Five years ago, Barrett was an underprivileged student I sponsored.

When I went to the school to select a student to support, a crowd of boys and girls rushed over to show off, each desperately sharing the hardships of their lives. Everyone wanted to be chosen as the recipient of the sponsorship.

Everyone except Barrett.

He stood at a distance in a clean white shirt, his sneakers washed so many times they had faded. He looked like a quiet butterfly, staying far away, neither fighting nor begging—just calmly watching.

At that moment, he reminded me of my younger self.

In the end, I chose to send him the stipends to support his studies and living expenses. When he couldn’t find a job, I even kindly recommended him to work at Cherity’s company.

If it hadn’t been for that initial sponsorship… maybe that night would never have happened—the night Cherity was drugged and, by some cruel twist of fate, ended up sleeping with him.

Thinking back now, maybe all of this was karma. I got involved in someone else’s fate, and I had no one to blame but myself.

Cherity had more patience with him than I’d ever seen. She gently coaxed him for a long time before Barrett finally calmed down. When he turned and saw me, the tears started to fall again.

“I’m sorry, Garland…” he cried.

“You don’t need to apologize to him,” Cherity cut in coldly, staring straight at me. “That night wasn’t your fault. The fact that I got pregnant with your child means that was all meant to happen.”

She turned her attention back to Barrett. “Babe, you’ve been like family to me for a long time. No one can take your place.”

She pulled him back into her arms and kissed him softly.

“Don’t ever run off like that again, or I’ll truly lose my mind.”

In the end, she took Barrett home with her.

Heart aching, she held his small frame with trembling hands, kissing his forehead over and over—five or six times on the way back.

Moved by her possessive love, Barrett dropped to his knees in front of me the moment we got back to the villa.

“Sir, I know I’ve betrayed your kindness. I can never repay what I owe you. But the truth is…” he said, “I’ve fallen in love with Cherity. Can you… Can you…”

He choked on his words, on the verge of crying again.

I gave him a bitter smile, the corners of my lips barely lifting. “You want to know if I can step down as the head of the family?”

It had been a year since I last saw him.

He’d filled out a little—looked healthier and more like a grown man now, even carried a hint of a married man’s presence. But there was sorrow in his eyes that hadn’t been there before.

During Cherity’s pregnancy and delivery, she’d told the media that Barrett had been sent abroad to further his studies.

But only I knew the truth—she had secretly hidden him in her private villa.

Every time she didn’t come home at night, she was with him.

At first, Cherity just wanted to keep the baby and raise her with me.

But people weren’t made of stone. Day after day, she too was moved by this pure and kind-hearted boy. Eventually, she gave her heart to him.

Panic flashed across Barrett’s face. He shook his head exaggeratedly. “That’s not what I meant! I know it’s just wishful thinking on my part. It’s just that… Sir, we already had a child…”

I lowered my head and gave him a faint smile before pulling up the identity cancellation form on my phone and showing it to him.

“Don’t worry. In seven days, I’ll go abroad.”

I said it slowly, but with unwavering certainty.

“By then, you’ll be the only head of this family.”

When I returned to my room, my younger brother was still anxiously waiting for me.

As soon as he saw me, he rushed over, his brows furrowed with concern.

“Bro, what happened? You and Cherity always got along so well, so who’s that guy?”

I shook my head, worn out. “Come with me abroad, Ashwyn. Let’s leave this place.”

My brother had always understood me.

I told him everything—even the truth about my rebirth.

Listening to all that, Ashwyn was filled with sympathy. He grabbed my hand and said, “Alright. I’ll go with you, bro. Let that bitch spend the rest of her life trying to find you—and never succeed.”