My Husband Imprisoned Me for His Dead Lover

I spent five years in a rehabilitation center for a crime I didn't commit. When I was finally released, my husband, Courtland, was the one waiting for me. He was the one who put me there.

He brought me back to our mansion not as his wife, but as a prisoner. I was to serve as a living penance for the death of his true love-my stepsister, Kinsley.

I scrubbed floors on my hands and knees while his mother and the staff watched with contempt. I was a ghost in my own home, a constant, breathing sacrifice to his grief.

Then one day, the woman I had supposedly killed walked into the living room.

Kinsley was alive.

She shrank back in fake terror, and Courtland rushed to her side, shielding her from me.

"You're frightening her," he snarled.

That night, Kinsley brought me a cup of tea, her eyes glittering with triumphant hatred. It was the same poison that had made me barren in my first life.

I knew their perfect, diabolical plan. They would break me completely, then get rid of me.

But they didn't know that this time, I remembered everything. In my first life, their cruel games led to the death of my innocent little brother, Aspen.

I took the cup from her hands and drank every last drop. I would endure their torture. I would play their game. And when they least expected it, I would escape and save the only person who ever mattered.

Chapter 1

The heavy steel door of the rehabilitation center ground open. The sound was slow, and final.

Five years.

Anastasia Quinn stood in the doorway, blinking against the unfamiliar brightness of the afternoon sun. The light felt sharp, intrusive.

The warden, a woman with a face carved from indifference, handed her a small bag. "Your personal effects."

It contained nothing.

"Mr. Johnson is waiting." The warden's voice was flat. She gestured toward a black sedan parked by the curb. The car was sleek and silent, an extension of the man who owned it.

Anastasia's hands, hidden in the sleeves of the plain gray dress they had given her, clenched into fists. Her knuckles went white.

She walked toward the car. Each step was deliberate. She did not look back.

The rear door opened from the inside.

Courtland Johnson sat there, his profile rigid. He did not turn to look at her. He stared straight ahead, his hands resting on his knees. He wore a perfectly tailored suit, the fabric a dark, expensive charcoal.

He was the image of piety and success. A man the city respected, a philanthropist. Her husband.

Anastasia slid into the car. The leather was cold against her skin.

She sat as far from him as she could, pressing herself against the door. The space between them felt like a canyon, cold and vast.

The car pulled away from the curb smoothly, silently.

"There are rules," Courtland said, his voice quiet but carrying the weight of command. He still did not look at her.

"You will live in the main house. You will not leave the grounds without my permission."

"You will not contact anyone from your past."

"You will do as you are told."

He paused, the silence stretching.

"Kinsley's memory deserves that much."

The name hung in the air between them. Kinsley Alexander. Her stepsister. The woman Courtland had loved. The woman everyone believed Anastasia had driven to her death.

Anastasia turned her head and looked out the window. The world outside was a blur of green and gray. She felt nothing. The part of her that could feel had been cauterized long ago.

"I understand," she said. Her own voice sounded foreign, a dry rustle of leaves.

He finally turned his head. His eyes, the color of a winter sky, met hers. There was no warmth in them. Only a chilling resolve.

"I wonder if you do," he said softly. "But you will learn."

The mansion was just as she remembered it. Grand, imposing, and cold. It had been her home, once. Now it was a more elegant prison.

The household staff lined the entrance hall. Their faces were a mixture of curiosity and contempt. They looked at her like she was something unclean that had been dragged in from the street.

Eleanor Johnson, Courtland's mother, stood at the top of the grand staircase. Her expression was one of undisguised hatred.

"You're to stay in the north wing," Eleanor announced, her voice dripping with disdain. "Your things have been prepared."

Anastasia followed a maid up the stairs, her gaze fixed on the floor. She could feel Eleanor's eyes on her back, sharp and venomous.

The room was small, sparse. A bed, a dresser, a single window overlooking a walled garden. On the bed, a simple, dark-colored dress was laid out. A servant's uniform.

"Mr. Johnson said this is to be your attire from now on," the maid said, a smirk playing on her lips.

Anastasia nodded. She did not speak.

When the maid left, she walked to the window. The garden below was beautiful, meticulously kept. But the walls were high.

She had traded one cage for another.

She knew what this was. It wasn't just punishment. It was a performance. A long, slow, meticulous act of devotion to a dead woman.

And Anastasia was the sacrificial lamb.

She knew what was coming. The daily humiliations. The psychological torment. The slow, grinding erosion of her soul.

And she knew how it ended.

With her little brother, Aspen.

Her heart, which she had thought was a dead thing, gave a painful throb.

Aspen. The only reason she had survived the last five years. The only reason she was standing here now, breathing this cold, sterile air.

She had to save him.

This time, she had to save him.

That was the only thing that mattered.