She Begged a Homeless Man to Marry Her

Chapter 2

Amelia grabbed his arm before the men could reach him and pulled him into a side alley. He stumbled after her, half resisting, half following on instinct. Behind them, shoes pounded against concrete.

"Move!" Amelia snapped.

They cut through a loading dock, slipped into a service corridor, and came out in the back of a closed café. Amelia locked the door and finally let go of him. He backed away at once, breathing hard.

"Who are you?" he asked.

"You know who I am," she said. "You just don't remember yet."

"I don't know anything."

"Your name is Raymond Vale."

He laughed once, bitterly. "My name is whatever people call me when they want me gone."

Amelia reached into her bag and pulled out a folded newspaper clipping. She handed it to him.

TECH CEO RAYMOND VALE PRESUMED DEAD AFTER BRIDGE CRASH.

Under it was a photo of a clean-cut man in a suit. Same eyes. Same mouth. Same scar near the brow, only fresher.

Raymond stared at it for a long time.

"Three years ago, you were the founder of Vale Neurotech," Amelia said. "Then you found something inside your own company that you weren't supposed to find. You said you would expose it. Two days later, your car went off a bridge."

He looked up slowly. "And you?"

"I'm Amelia Hart."

That name stirred something too. A rooftop. Rain. Laughter. A promise made over a ring box.

"My wife?" he said, almost without meaning to.

Her eyes filled, but she nodded only once. "Yes."

Raymond sat down hard in the nearest chair.

Amelia knelt in front of him, lowering her voice. "They didn't kill you. They took you. They erased what they could and abandoned you when they thought you were useless. But not everything is gone. The name in that ring box was one of your memory anchors."

Raymond pressed both hands to his head. More fragments came - a laboratory, a locked server, a file marked Helix, and another man's face smiling while signing his death papers.

"Who was in the SUV?" he asked.

Amelia hesitated. "Jonas."

"Who is Jonas?"

She looked away.

"The man I'm supposed to marry tomorrow."

Before Raymond could respond, someone knocked once on the café's back door.

Then a girl's voice said, "Mama... is he awake this time?"