Once, I Kissed the Moon Chapter 1

I was married to the city's mafia heir for ten years.

I endured blood and fire with him. My piano hands grew calloused from guns, stained with unforgivable sins.

At 28, he became obsessed with a slum girl named Daisy.

I discovered them at a prenatal clinic.

"Daisy's Catholic," he said coldly, handing me divorce papers. "She needs my name. Sign this for 40% shares."

I refused. So he destroyed me—piece by piece.

Finally, he strapped my paralyzed brother into a hydraulic press.

"Sign," he threatened, "or watch him crushed."

The machine roared. Blood and bone painted my nightmare.

Then darkness swallowed me.

I awoke back in that hospital hallway—before discovering them.

This time, I vanished silently.

But after I disappeared... he was the one who lost his mind.

* * *

I huddled behind the wall, my hand clamped over my mouth to stifle the tremors that wracked my body. The horrific image of my brother's final moments was seared onto the inside of my eyelids.

I could hear Adrian's voice, soft and reassuring, as he spoke to Daisy.

"Once your pregnancy is stable, we'll get married."

Hearing those words a second time, I didn't lose control.

In my last life, I had stormed out, demanding answers. He, fearing Daisy would discover she was merely his kept woman, had shattered my jaw with the butt of his gun.

The memory made me shrink further into the shadows.

Adrian wrapped an arm around Daisy's shoulders and led her away.

Only when I was certain they were gone did I step out, clutching my own medical report, and walk into the doctor's office.

"Ms. Winston," the doctor said gently, his eyes full of sympathy. "Your uterine wall is dangerously thin. If you terminate this pregnancy, you may never be able to conceive again."

I stared silently at the report in my hands. Two months pregnant.

My mind flashed to the look in Adrian's eyes as he'd pressed his ear to Daisy's belly—a tenderness so profound it seemed to overflow. Ten years ago, I had drowned in that same gaze, abandoning a scholarship to Juilliard, abandoning my dreams of the concert stage, all for him.

Step by step, the hands that once danced over ivory keys learned the cold weight of a gun, becoming accustomed to a life lived on a knife's edge.

But the moment Daisy appeared, all my sacrifices became a bitter joke.

The doctor, seeing my silence, continued. "Ms. Winston, given your unique circumstances… does your husband know about this?"

I looked up, meeting his gaze, my voice eerily calm.

"My husband is dead."

An hour later, I stumbled out of the hospital, my face as white as the sterile walls, one hand braced against them for support.

Once the color had returned to my lips, I pulled out my phone and called my brother's caregiver.

"Leo, I need you to arrange a transfer for my brother to a private facility in Switzerland this week. Be discreet. Mr. Winston is not to know anything about this. Absolute secrecy."

Next, I messaged my most trusted subordinate, asking him to draw up a set of divorce papers.

Just as I finished, a file containing all of Daisy's information arrived on my phone.

In my past life, I had despised her so much I couldn't even bear to look at her picture.

Reborn, my heart was strangely peaceful. For the first time, I was curious about this woman who had so completely captivated Adrian, a man who had seen and discarded countless others.

I opened the compressed file. A video popped up.

Inside a dilapidated church, a young woman played "Dreaming of the Wedding" on an old, out-of-tune piano. Sunlight streamed through the stained-glass windows, illuminating her faded dress.

She looked as pure and fragile as a daisy after a spring rain.

Adrian was visible in half-profile, a soft, mesmerized smile on his face.

I slammed the pause button.

And ran to the bathroom, dry-heaving over the toilet.

It was too absurd.

The woman he had fallen in love with… was the ghost of me from ten years ago.