My Love Buried Me, My Return Will Bury You

“One hundred million,” she said without a trace of warmth. “Collect the payment, disappear abroad within seven days, and make sure you never cross paths with my grandson again.”

Across the polished table sat Mrs. Sterling — Sebastian’s formidable grandmother — wrapped in silk and diamonds, her expression carved from contempt, as if even sharing the same room with me was an offense she barely tolerated.

Once, I would have shattered under that gaze. My cheeks would have burned, tears spilling as I swore I wasn’t a gold digger, that I loved Sebastian with everything I had. I would have clung to him like a lifeline.

But not today.

This time, I only curved my lips slightly and inclined my head.

“Fine. I accept.”

For a heartbeat she looked almost startled, then she let out a short, humorless chuckle. “Good. It’s about time you remembered where you belong.”

I didn’t bother replying. I picked up the check, folded it neatly, and rose from my seat. No arguments. No pleas. Not anymore.

After all, I had already paid the ultimate price for loving Sebastian once before.

In that other life, I’d died because I refused to walk away from him. They called it a tragic mishap — a drunk, a gun meant for someone else. But it was my heart the bullet found. As I lay bleeding across the floor, he didn’t even meet my eyes. The only sound he made was another woman’s name falling from his lips.

Then I opened my eyes… and time rewound.

I was back to when I was still his wife. Back to before the betrayal reached its climax. Back to this very night, when his grandmother tried to buy me out of his life with a single signature.

So I accepted the money — silently.

When I returned to the villa, the darkness had thickened, swallowing the empty rooms. The house felt colder than ever. The only warmth lingered in a framed photograph resting on the coffee table: Sebastian holding me close, looking at me as though the world ended and began with me.

I brushed my fingertips over the glass, and the memories came flooding in.

Three years earlier, beneath a rain-lashed bridge, I had found him barely clinging to life. That day my coworker — malicious and petty — had tossed my phone into the murky floodwaters. I had been cursing under my breath while searching for it when I heard someone gasping for air.

He was slumped against the concrete, a gunshot wound torn into his side, rain and blood mingling at his feet.

“Who are you?” I asked, shaking.

“I don’t… I don’t remember,” he whispered weakly, teeth chattering. “Just don’t take me to a hospital. Please.”

I brought him home to my rundown apartment — peeling walls, leaky pipes, winters we survived wrapped in piles of quilts.

And somehow, in that poverty, love bloomed.

He waited downstairs after my late shifts so I wouldn’t walk home alone. When cramps bent me in half, he stayed awake all night, massaging my stomach until the pain eased. Without telling me, he worked three jobs just to afford a bracelet I had admired in a shop window only a few times.

Every night he’d pull me close and murmur, “I don’t want anything in this world except you.”

I believed every word.

He even dragged me to a tattoo parlor and etched my name across his chest.

“If it hurts, it means I’ll never forget you,” he said with a grin.

I thought we were unbreakable.

Until his memories returned.

He wasn’t some penniless man abandoned by fate. He was the heir to the Sterling mafia empire — a ruler of half of New York’s underworld. He hadn’t been forgotten. He’d been hunted.

Once he remembered who he was, the man I loved vanished.

He moved me into this massive estate, draped me in jewelry I never asked for, then disappeared into suits, blood-soaked negotiations, and endless nights away.

I told myself he was just busy.

Until I saw the photos.

Sebastian opening car doors for Bianca Rutherford, her smile radiant, his gaze tender in a way he hadn’t looked at me in months. Headlines praised them as destiny’s perfect pair.

That night, sitting alone under the moon, I finally understood:

The Sebastian who had walked through storms for me had died the moment he reclaimed his throne.

In my previous life, I had refused to accept it — begging, degrading myself — until I paid with my life.

But not this time.

Because this time, I had come back.

---

The villa was silent as ever that night. Sebastian didn’t return.

Before, I would have waited on the couch until morning. This time, I went straight to bed.

At dawn, I headed to the visa office, filled out every form, paid for expedited processing. In a week, I’d be gone.

When I stepped outside at noon, I wandered without direction until I entered a random restaurant.

The second I pushed the door open, my entire body froze.