Chapter 1

Death wasn't the silence I expected. It was more like being trapped underwater while the world above continued without you.

I was floating somewhere between the ceiling and my own corpse when he appeared—the soul escort. Impeccably dressed in a charcoal suit that probably cost more than most people's cars, carrying what looked like an iPad that glowed with an otherworldly blue light. Professional. Efficient. Exactly what you'd expect from the afterlife's corporate division.

"Jocelyn Swift," he said, not looking up from his device. "Suicide by overdose, 11:47 PM. You have a choice to make."

The contract materialized in front of me, floating at eye level. "Ten-Day Judgment Period" glowed at the top in golden letters.

"Sign this, and you get ten days to resolve any... unfinished business. After that, final transition. Don't sign, and we proceed immediately to processing."

I wanted to laugh, but ghosts apparently couldn't manage proper laughter. Just a hollow sound that didn't quite reach anything. "Unfinished business? Like what—learning to forgive the man who destroyed me?"

The escort didn't react. They never do, I imagined. "The choice is yours, Miss Swift. Though I should mention—your husband just arrived home."

That's when I heard it. The sound that made my non-existent heart clench. Lewis's key in the lock, three floors below. He was calling my name, but there was something desperate in his voice that I'd never heard before.

The bedroom door crashed open. Lewis stopped dead when he saw me—or rather, what used to be me—lying peaceful on our king-sized bed, still in the red dress he bought me for our anniversary. The one I wore to sign our divorce papers this morning.

I watched him the way you watch a car accident—unable to look away from the destruction.

His phone dropped. The sound echoed through the room like a gunshot. His knees hit the marble next to the bed, and suddenly the most powerful man in the city was shaking like a child.

"Jocelyn." His voice broke on my name. "Jocelyn, wake up. Please wake up."

From my floating vantage point, I could hear his heartbeat—pounding like thunder, erratic and desperate. But when he touched my face, when his tears fell on my skin, I felt nothing.

Ghost rules, apparently. I could hear the sounds of his grief but not feel the heat of his regret.

"This is interesting," the escort observed, making notes on his glowing tablet. "The emotional resonance is quite strong. Are you certain you want to proceed with immediate processing?"

I watched Lewis press his forehead against my cold hand, his shoulders shaking with sobs I never imagined he was capable of. Three years of marriage, and I'd never seen him cry. Not when his father died. Not when our baby—

No. I wouldn't think about that.

"He's quite the actor," I told the escort, though my voice sounded less convinced than I'd like. "He should get an Oscar for this performance."

But even as I said it, I could hear the raw anguish in every ragged breath. The way he kept saying my name like a prayer or a curse. This didn't sound like acting. This sounded like a man breaking apart.

The escort tapped his tablet. "Physical responses suggest genuine distress. Elevated heart rate, stress hormones, neurochemical indicators of severe emotional trauma. If this is a performance, it's remarkably thorough."

I wanted to feel vindicated. I wanted to feel satisfied watching him suffer the way he made me suffer. Instead, there was just this hollow confusion echoing in the space where my heart used to be.

Lewis pulled out his phone with shaking fingers, dialed a number. "Dr. Chen? It's Lewis. I need—my wife is—" His voice cracked completely. "She's gone. I need you to come now. I need you to do something."

The desperation in his voice cut through me in ways I didn't think were possible anymore.

"I thought my death would set him free," I whispered to myself. "I thought he'd be relieved."

The escort looked up from his tablet with something that might be sympathy. "The living rarely react to death the way we expect them to. The question is—do you want to find out why?"

Below us, Lewis was trying to perform CPR on my body that had been cold for hours. His movements were frantic, uncoordinated. The most controlled man I knew had completely lost it.

"You said ten days?" I asked.

"Ten days," he confirmed. "Sign the contract, and you'll have that time to observe, to understand, to decide if there's anything left worth fighting for."

I stared at the glowing contract, then down at my husband—ex-husband—as he begged my corpse to come back to him. Part of me wanted to see where this led. The larger part wanted to watch his world burn from the ashes of mine.

"The escort mentioned something about ten days," I said finally. "Ten days to change my mind."

The contract hovered expectantly between us.

"Ten days?" I repeated, looking down at Lewis's broken form. "That should be more than enough time to watch this palace built on my pain crumble to dust."

I reached for the glowing contract, my ghostly fingers tingling as they made contact with the otherworldly document.

The countdown began now.