Chapter 2

Day one of my ten-day contract, and I was already questioning my decision.

Lewis hadn't left the house. He'd been sitting in his study for fourteen straight hours, staring at the laptop screen with the kind of focus he usually reserved for hostile takeovers. The man who built a media empire didn't cry anymore—he just burned with quiet fury.

"Password accepted," the computer chimed as he finally cracked my encrypted cloud drive.

I floated behind his chair, watching my digital life unfold before his eyes. Three years of hidden journals. Screenshots of text messages. Bank statements showing mysterious transfers to my family's accounts—money that disappeared from our joint funds like water down a drain.

His jaw tightened as he read my final entry, dated yesterday morning:

"Signed the divorce papers today. Lewis will finally be free of the burden I've become. Maybe now he won't have to watch his money disappear into my family's endless pit of need. Mom called again—another 'emergency.' I'm so tired of being their ATM while they destroy everything I try to build."

"Jesus Christ, Jocelyn." His voice was raw. "Why didn't you tell me?"

I wanted to scream that I tried. That every time I brought up my family's financial manipulation, he'd brush it off as "family loyalty" or suggest we could "afford to help." But now, seeing the evidence laid out in black and white, I understood what I never did before—he genuinely didn't know how bad it was.

Lewis pulled out his phone, dialed a number. When he spoke, his voice had shifted into the cold.

"James? It's Lewis. I need you to freeze all credit lines to Swift Industries immediately. Yes, the whole family operation. And I want a forensic audit of every transaction they've made in the past five years."

The satisfaction should have felt sweeter. Instead, there was just this hollow ache where vindication should be.

I'd been a ghost for twenty hours now, and I still couldn't figure out the rules. Touching anything solid felt like trying to grab smoke with my bare hands.

But watching Lewis systematically destroy my family's financial empire made something stir in my chest—a flicker of the girl who used to fight back.

I focused on the smart speaker in the corner, remembering what the soul escort said about unfinished business. The device sat silent, but I poured every ounce of my concentration into it. The effort felt like trying to scream underwater—exhausting and futile.

Nothing happened.

Then Lewis' phone rang, and I heard my mother's shrill voice even from across the room.

"Lewis? What's this about our credit being frozen? There must be some mistake—"

"No mistake, Helen." His voice could cut glass. "I found Jocelyn's records. I know exactly how much you've been bleeding us dry."

The silence on the other end was telling.

"She's gone because of you," Lewis continued, and there was something dangerous in his quiet fury. "Your daughter is dead because she couldn't bear disappointing people who never deserved her loyalty."

I tried again with the speaker, pushing harder this time. The strain felt like my soul was being stretched thin, but suddenly—

"I want to stay in your arms forever and make you feel the way you make me feel..."

Our song. The one from our first dance. The music filled the study, and Lewis went completely still.

His head snapped toward the speaker, eyes wide. "Jocelyn?"

The music cut off as quickly as it started, leaving us both in stunned silence. Lewis stared at the device like it might explode.

I should have felt triumphant about this small victory, but the look on his face—hope mixed with terror—made my non-existent chest tight.

"Alexis, did I activate a playlist?" Lewis asked the smart speaker.

"No active music commands detected," the AI responded cheerfully.

Lewis pushed back from his desk, ran his hands through his hair. He'd been doing that since college when he was stressed. Some habits never change.

"If you're here," he said to the empty room, voice cracking, "if you can somehow hear me—I'm sorry. God, Jocelyn, I'm so sorry. I should have seen what they were doing to you."

I watched him from my floating vantage point, and something inside me shifted. The anger was still there, but it was getting complicated by something else. Something that looked dangerously like understanding.

He turned back to the computer, clicked on a folder I thought was hidden forever—security footage from our home office. Hours of my family visiting, my mother rifling through our financial documents while I made tea, my brother pocketing my jewelry when he thought no one was looking.

"I have everything," Lewis told the empty air. "Every theft, every manipulation. They're going to pay for what they did to you."

The grief in his voice made me float closer, drawn by something I couldn't name.

"I never meant for you to handle this alone," he whispered. "I never meant for any of this."

For the first time since I signed that contract, I let myself consider the possibility that maybe—just maybe—I wasn't the only one who got destroyed in our marriage.

Lewis picked up his coffee cup, took a shaky sip, then set it down hard on the desk.

"Jocelyn," he said to the room, to me, to the ghost he couldn't see but somehow knew was there. "If you're here—if any of this is real—knock once on the desk. Please."

I stared at his trembling hands, at the desperate hope in his eyes. Nine days left on my contract. Nine days to decide whether this broken man deserved my forgiveness or my revenge.

I reached out, focusing every particle of my ghostly energy on that simple ceramic mug.

The coffee cup trembled once against the wooden desk.

Lewis's breath caught, and for the first time since I died, I wondered if I'd made a terrible mistake.