Reborn to Love Mr. Right – Episode 19
Jeff struggled against the tape around his wrists while the scenery blurred behind him. Derek held the phone close enough for Arianna to see his father’s terror. “Bring the ledger to mile marker fourteen,” he ordered. “No police, no security, and no Hayden.”
Donald demanded proof that Jeff was still alive. Victor Cross leaned into view and struck the chauffeur hard enough to split his lip. “You fired me and believed the problem disappeared,” Victor said. “Tonight, you can pay for that arrogance.”
The call ended before Hayden’s team could complete the trace. Arianna stared at the ledger in her hands. Jeff had helped create the trap that ruined her body, yet leaving him to Derek would make them participants in the same cruelty. Revenge had felt simple when her enemies existed only in memory; saving one of them tested what her second chance truly meant.
Hayden read the conflict on her face. “Saving him does not forgive him,” he said. “It keeps Derek from deciding who you become.” Arianna nodded, grateful that he understood the distinction she could not put into words.
Police established a concealed perimeter around mile marker fourteen while a duplicate ledger was prepared. Hayden objected to Arianna acting as the courier, but Derek would recognize any substitute. At last, he placed a tracking transmitter beneath the binding and made her promise to follow his signal if the exchange changed. Donald added a second condition: she would leave the moment either vehicle moved, regardless of what Derek threatened.
The storm intensified as Arianna drove an inspected sedan toward North Road. An officer controlled a second braking system remotely, and unmarked vehicles remained beyond Derek’s likely sightline. Even with every precaution, rain striking the windshield carried her back to the night metal folded around her legs. She counted each breath and reminded herself that memory was a warning, not a prophecy.
Mile marker fourteen stood beside an unfinished overlook. Derek waited beneath a broken streetlamp, his jacket soaked and his silver ring shining on one hand. Victor and Jeff were nowhere visible. Beyond him, the cliff dissolved into cold rain and absolute darkness below.
Arianna stopped twenty feet away and held up the ledger. “Let me see Jeff.” Derek smiled at the command, as though they had returned to a private game only he remembered. He pointed toward a delivery van parked near the cliff barrier.
Jeff sat behind the wheel with his hands tied. A cable ran from the van’s rear axle to a tow vehicle hidden farther down the slope. Victor could pull it toward the drop at any moment.
Derek demanded the ledger. Arianna asked why he cared about evidence from a plan that had already failed. “Because Victor built the road that led to our future,” he said. “Without him, your father lives long enough to keep me poor.” There was no shame in his answer, only resentment that another man’s survival might deny him wealth.
The confession clarified what Arianna had misunderstood. Derek had not designed every stage of her destruction; Victor had identified his resentment and cultivated it. The former executive needed an heir he could control, while Derek needed someone who knew how to dismantle Taylor Industries from within.
“And Ivy?” Arianna asked. Derek’s expression darkened. In the previous future, Ivy had tried to leave him after discovering Victor planned to move the stolen assets offshore. Derek blamed her betrayal for the investigation that eventually destroyed him.
His rebirth had not begun at the gala by chance. He had returned from a prison infirmary, dying years after Arianna’s murder while Victor lived abroad under a new identity. Derek remembered possessing everything and losing it, but not the remorse that might have made a second life worthwhile. Fate had returned his memories without repairing the emptiness that shaped every choice.
“You think Hayden is your reward for suffering,” Derek said. “He’s just another man waiting to own the Taylor name.” Arianna saw the old tactic clearly. Derek could imagine loyalty only as a form of acquisition because he had never offered anything else.
She placed the duplicate ledger on the wet pavement and stepped back. Derek bent to retrieve it. The transmitter beneath the binding signaled Hayden’s team, but Victor anticipated the trap.
The tow vehicle roared to life down the slope. Jeff’s van jerked backward toward the damaged barrier as Derek sprinted into the trees. Arianna ran toward the van, ignoring Hayden’s shouted warning through her earpiece.
The rear wheels struck the concrete edge. Jeff screamed as empty space opened behind him. Arianna reached the driver’s door but could not pull it open against the angle.
Hayden’s armored SUV slammed into the front of the van, pinning it before it tipped over. Security officers swarmed the overlook while Hayden climbed across the hood and broke the passenger window. Together, he and Arianna cut Jeff free.
Police captured Victor beside the tow vehicle, but Derek escaped through a drainage path he remembered from the future investigation. Victor laughed as officers restrained him. “The boy was always expendable,” he said. “You still don’t know who put the photograph in his pocket.”
Hayden checked Derek’s abandoned phone. It contained one scheduled message, addressed to Arianna and timed for midnight. The attached image showed Ivy standing beside the future wheelchair, watching from the edge of the ballroom after she supposedly left Arianna to die.
