"I think the Bennet family was closer together in that lifeti than we ever acknowledged."
"Closer? I hated her," Slater frowned deeply. "I still hate her now for taking advantage of my kindness and stealing my snacks!"
"I am not stealing your snacks," Penny corrected. "I am teaching you how to share them."
"Snack stealer with a gambling addiction!"
Finn raised a hand before the duo even started with their usual banter. "What I’m saying is, in this lifeti, First Brother moved to the Pierson Corporation the mont the family business started becoming unstable. Penny had enough money and power to acquire Miller’s Company. Slater rembered his past halfway through his life and eventually joined Holand Security."
"And I..." Hugo trailed off, his face souring. "... stayed the sa. How co nothing changed?"
"You have Kiara, and you’re alive," Penny retorted in a knowing tone.
"Right."
"What I an is," Finn continued, "in the first life, we can all agree the Bennet family business connected all of you. You clung to it like it was your lifeline. When it fell, all of you were affected. But in this lifeti, everything you did showed you didn’t need the family business. Even Jonathan didn’t see that coming."
"But still, that doesn’t answer it," Penny humd. "Finn, you’re talking like we didn’t think about this before."
"It doesn’t answer everything," Finn said, "but it explains why the Church didn’t make a move while the Order was unstable."
Everyone remained confused—except Zoren.
"If soone rembered their first life in the Church," Zoren murmured thoughtfully, "soone in power... then they might know sothing we don’t."
"That still doesn’t answer the question," Penny stressed. "In our previous life, why would they target First Brother? Assuming that scandal was ant for him and I just butted in—as I usually do—why him?"
Years ago, they had been given an answer to that. It was simpler than they expected: the Bennet family had simply been in the wrong place at the wrong ti. Penny had believed that.
Silence fell until Penny noticed Zoren staring down, his expression more conflicted than confused. She knew her husband well. This wasn’t the usual kind of confusion.
"Darling, what is it?" she asked, drawing everyone’s attention to him.
Zoren pressed his lips into a thin line, eyes still lowered, shaking his head. When he finally looked up, his pale lips parted, then closed again.
"I’m not sure," he said at last, "but if I’m right... then First Brother might be right."
"What does that an?" Hugo blurted out. "First Brother is always right."
"That Grandma is older than she claid," Zoren murmured, confusing everyone further.
"Darling," Penny frowned. "You’re making this worse."
Zoren took a deep breath and leaned back, looking at her. "Penny, rember the ti I visited Grandma, and she kept saying strange things?"
"She always says strange things."
"No, not that." He shook his head. "The ti she talked about being married before she married my grandfather."
Silence fell as Penny thought back. Slowly, she recalled the day Zoren had co ho and told her about that conversation.
In this life, Grandma Pierson had only married once—to Zoren’s grandfather. The sa was true in their previous life.
But during one of her episodes, she told a different story.
According to Old Mrs. Pierson, she had married an abusive man first. She endured it, left before she could kill him, and eventually t Zoren’s grandfather—a man who treated her right. They had Enzo, Zoren’s father, and later, Zoren himself.
Silence settled again as Zoren finished explaining. It would’ve been easy to dismiss it as another episode—just as Zoren had done the first ti.
"How many tis did she repeat that story?" Slater asked.
"Maybe twice," Zoren shrugged. "Or three tis. Always the sa story."
"Are you saying it could be true?" Slater asked in disbelief. "That there was another lifeti before the one we rember?"
Hugo scratched his head. "I’m barely keeping up with the first and second lifetis. But if Grandma’s stories are real, that would an this is her third life, right? Wouldn’t she know that?"
"And if our rebirths started the sa," Hugo continued, "then if she married soone else first in this lifeti and the one before Grandpa, we should’ve known."
Zoren nodded. "That’s why I think it’s probably worth looking into, given everything that’s happening now. But now that you ntion that, we probably shouldn’t."
"What else?" Atlas asked, curiosity sharpening his voice. He lifted his chin toward Zoren. "In her story, what else did she say?"
Zoren thought. "She said she was happy she made that choice. That she had my dad. That my dad had . And that I had my children with Penny."
"See? Probably nothing," Hugo said, leaning back with his hands behind his head. "In the previous tiline, Penny and Zoren didn’t even et properly, even though they were technically married. That changed in this lifeti. Maybe we’re overthinking it because of all the pressure."
"If Grandma rembered, she would’ve known she didn’t have great-grandchildren before."
"What if Renren and I still found each other in every tiline?" Penny blurted out, smiling smugly. "That’s not impossible."
She turned to her husband. "I’d love him in my next life too."
Despite that, Hugo’s reasoning made sense. They had already lived one life and were living this one differently. Introducing another lifeti before that was... a lot.
Too much, even.
But Atlas didn’t let it go.
Instead, he stayed quiet while the others moved on until he suddenly spoke.
"What if we’re not overthinking it?"
The room fell silent as they slowly averted their eyes to him.
Atlas lifted his gaze. "What if the lifeti we consider the first... isn’t the first at all? What if this isn’t the second, but the third?"
"That would be interesting," Finn said instead of dismissing it. "If the one we rember is actually the second, then soone in the first tiline might have rembered so things and tried to change everything by..."
He trailed off, only for Slater to finish, "... by killing us?"
Finn tilted his head, intrigued. "Yes, and if that’s the case, then the real question isn’t why they targeted us in the first place and in this tiline."
His eyes sharpened.
"The question would be... what did we do in that actual first tiline?"
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