Chapter 7

I stepped in front of Sophia, shielding her as I stared Alexander down. "So you're finally showing your true colors?"

He let out an arrogant laugh. "What act? This foolish woman only just realized—I never approached her for love. Her company's confidential files, every cent in her accounts, they've all been under my control for a long time."

Sophia collapsed onto the sand, shaking her head in disbelief.

"You think you're clever?" I kept my voice level. "Check your phone."

Alexander's grin faltered. He pulled out his phone. His face went white.

Every account he'd siphoned, every document he'd stolen, every fraudulent transfer—frozen. Flagged. Locked.

"How—"

"You think I spent seven years building a company without learning how people steal?" I said. "The moment you sent those photos, I had my forensic team trace every digital fingerprint you left behind."

"You knew." His voice was thin now. "You knew all along."

"Since the day you framed me for the watch." I pulled a USB drive from my pocket and held it up. "Financial records. Forged signatures. Unauthorized access to Sophia's accounts. Enough evidence for fifteen counts of fraud."

Red and blue lights flickered at the edge of the parking lot. Two unmarked cars.

Alexander bolted.

He made it maybe thirty steps before the officers intercepted him.

As they cuffed him, he twisted around, snarling at Sophia. "You think he loves you? He knew everything and let you make a fool of yourself! He watched you betray him and said nothing!"

The words were designed to poison. One last manipulation.

Sophia looked at me, her face ravaged by tears.

"Is that true? You knew… and you didn't tell me?"

I crouched beside her on the sand.

"If I had told you, would you have believed me?"

She opened her mouth. Closed it. Because she knew the answer.

A year ago, if I had presented evidence against Alexander, she would have defended him. She would have called me jealous, controlling, paranoid.

She had to see it herself.

"I'm sorry," she whispered. "I'm so sorry, James."

I looked at her—really looked—and all I saw was the ghost of the girl I'd fallen in love with, buried beneath years of someone else's lies.

"The three chances are used up, Sophia."

Her face crumpled.

"But there's one thing I never needed a chance for." I reached into my pocket and placed the old two-hundred-dollar watch in her palm. "Keeping my promises."

She clutched the watch to her chest and wept.

The nineteen-year-old Sophia stood beside me, shimmering faintly in the moonlight.

She was smiling through her tears.

"It's almost midnight, James."

I nodded. "I know."

"She'll remember everything now. The wish. The shooting star. The promise."

"Will she be okay?"

Young Sophia looked at the woman sobbing on the sand—the older, broken version of herself.

"I don't know. But at least now she has the truth."

The clock struck twelve. The ghostly girl flickered once, twice—then dissolved like mist under morning sun.

And on the beach, the twenty-seven-year-old Sophia gasped.

Her eyes went wide—wider than I'd ever seen—as eight years of forgotten memories flooded back all at once.

The shooting star. The promise. Three chances.

And the boy who kept every single one.