On our third anniversary, I watched my wife walk into a cryogenics chamber and seal herself inside. She did it to escape the man who swore he loved her—while he was busy buying diamond bracelets…

Vivian held up the document and my heart stopped. Audrey’s body statement for her cryogenics project. She had volunteered herself because there weren’t enough candidates. She was the one who went into that chamber, not me.

I was the one who walked away in anger when she married Dominic. I never forgave her. And now she was gone. The man who called himself her husband had been cheating on her for years with a woman named Susan.

I knew it. I had watched it happen. And Audrey knew it too. She knew everything.

That’s why she faked her own death and put herself into that machine. She wanted to vanish so completely that Dominic would wonder if she was ever real. My name is Julian. I was adopted into the Sinclair family.

Audrey was never my biological sister, but I’d loved her my whole life. It was too late now. The damage was done. I stood there in the empty lab, staring at that statement, and I made a decision.

“I’ll make sure she wakes up. From now on, all resources go into Audrey’s cryogenics project. ”

Days passed. The wedding anniversary gala was cancelled.

Dominic tore the city apart looking for her. I told him she was traveling. For seven days I guarded her chamber. Susan showed up at the house with her hands all over my chest, some cheap trick to keep me distracted.

I didn’t care. All I could think about was Audrey. But then everything fell apart. Dominic came back demanding to see her.

I told him she was gone. I told him she was dead. I thought he would leave. Instead, he spent weeks tearing everything apart, searching hospitals, contacting the police, desperate for any sign of her.

And I let him find one. A drowned body. Decomposed beyond recognition. He identified her as Audrey.

He stood in the morgue and broke down completely. “Julian, tell me that’s not Audrey. Tell me where you hid my Audrey. ”

I watched him fall apart and felt nothing.

You killed her, I told him. You and that woman you cheated with. She knew everything. She saw everything.

And when she was hurting, where were you? He collapsed on the floor, sobbing, begging for forgiveness that would never come. The next day, Susan went public. “I’m pregnant with Dominic’s twin babies,” she announced.

She smiled at the cameras like she had won. I watched her Instagram posts, glowing and proud, while Audrey’s body was still cold in the morgue. That was it. I sent my men to bring her in.

She walked into my office with that same smug look. “Dominic and I are having twins. He’s going to leave you, Audrey. Wait, you’re not Audrey.

”

I stepped out of the shadows. “No, I’m not. ”

Her face drained. “Where’s Dominic?

”

“He’s gone. And you—you are going to pay for what you did to Audrey. ”

I gathered the evidence. Years of text messages.

Phone records. Hotel receipts. I handed them all to Dominic. He pulled Susan into his office and I heard the shouting through the walls.

“I don’t accept this child,” he screamed. “Audrey is gone and you will pay for what you did. ”

But Susan wasn’t done. “You keep saying you love Audrey,” she spat back.

“But you slept with me for years behind her back. You got me pregnant. It was you. ”

Dominic went quiet.

“You’re right,” he said finally. “It’s my fault. And I must make amends. ”

He forced her into an abortion procedure.

His mother stopped him at the hospital. “Dominic, these are your babies. You can’t terminate these pregnancies. ”

He looked at her with dead eyes.

“She killed Audrey. She has to pay. ”

But his mother took over. She forced a public apology, a quick marriage, a salvage operation for the company.

Dominic married Susan while my Audrey’s body was still in the ground. I didn’t let them recover. I had every shareholder buyout arranged, every contract undermined. Within two months, Westwood Corporation stock hit rock bottom.

I watched him squirm and felt nothing at all. Then the lab called. “Julian, it’s time. The experiment worked.

”

I ran. I ran faster than I had ever run in my life. The chamber opened and there she was. Audrey.

Ten years younger. Ten years of cold sleep. Her eyes fluttered open and locked onto mine. “Julian?

” Her voice was hoarse. I couldn’t speak. I just took her hand. “Where am I?

” she asked. “In the lab,” I said. “The cryogenics experiment. You’ve been asleep for ten years.

”

She smiled weakly. “I didn’t think you’d come. Let alone stay for ten years. ”

“Wherever you are is my home.

”

We spent months rebuilding. I organized her experimental data and presented it to the medical community. She gave interviews. Audrey’s name was everywhere.

The experiments were recognized as a success. The world finally accepted cryogenic technology. Dominic saw her on the news and came running. “Audrey, I finally found you,” he said, reaching for her arm.

She stepped back and looked at him with empty eyes. “I’m sorry, do I know you? ”

The look on his face—I’ll remember it for the rest of my life. “Audrey, I’m sorry,” he begged.

“Please forgive me. Please. ”

She turned away. “Get lost and move on.

I’m not giving up on Audrey. I will fight for her,” he said stubbornly. But she was done with him. Susan disappeared after the divorce.

Dominic’s mother forced them apart. He was a broken man, wandering the city, calling her name outside the lab. He shouted at me through the gates. “Julian, you homewrecker.

If it wasn’t for you, Audrey would be back with me by now. ”

I just watched him and said, “This is what it feels like, Dominic. Watching the one you love be with someone else. Devastating, isn’t it?

”

He lost everything. The company. The woman. His mind.

On the day Audrey and I were to get married at the church, I got the news. Dominic had walked into the TV station with a gun and started shooting. The paramedics brought him in with a bullet in the chest. He survived, barely.

But the Audrey he knew was gone. She visited him in the hospital once, just once. He grabbed her hand. “Audrey, we can start fresh.

You just couldn’t forgive me in the end, could you? ”

She pulled her hand away. “Goodbye, Dominic. ”

He had a heart attack that night.

They brought him back twice, but he gave up. He let go. I stood outside the room window and watched them pull the sheet over his face. And then I walked back to Audrey.

She was waiting for me in the church. She looked at me and smiled. “I love you, Julian. ”

I took her hand.

“This time, I’m not letting anyone take you from me. ”