I Stopped Saving the Second LeadChapter 1

“Ding. Target capture failed. Host will remain in this world until natural death.”

Tristan pulled me close, face etched with sorrow. “Hazel, don’t let this destroy you. We can have another baby.”

This was a fiction. Back in reality, my mother lay in a hospital bed, terminally ill, buried under crushing medical debt. Just as I lost hope, the System pulled me here.

The deal was clear: win the heart of the tragic second lead, save him from the female lead’s torment, and keep him alive. Success meant a fortune and a ticket home—my mother could live. Failure meant being trapped here forever.

This was my fourth attempt to save Tristan. Each of the three times before, he fell desperately in love with Valerie, the woman who tortured him and ruined his family.

This time, fate repeated itself. He fell for her again.

Rushing to her side, he left our child alone—and our son died.

Hearing his empty comfort, I stared blankly at his chest. “There will never be another baby.”

“Ding. Extreme emotional spike detected. Please—wait, stop! You’ve killed him three times already!”

Before the mechanical voice finished, the hunting knife in my hand drove deep into his heart.

If I could never go home, my mother would die.

Then he would die too.

* * *

A few feet away stood the tiny hospital bed. Our beautiful boy lay there, eyes closed, looking as if he were simply taking a nap.

I wanted to walk toward him, but my feet were nailed to the floor. It felt as though weights were shackled to my ankles. My face was drained of all color, my breath hitched in my throat, and my trembling hand reached out into the empty air.

“Hazel, I am so sorry. Valerie twisted her ankle out of nowhere. She was crying, saying she needed to get to the ER right away. Finn was having so much fun in the sandbox. I had no choice. I thought it would be fine to just let him play for a few minutes.”

“But… I don't know how it happened. When I got back, the police were there. They said he chased a ball into the middle of the street and a car…”

“He didn't even make it to the hospital.”

The words spilled from Tristan’s mouth. I opened my own, trying to scream, trying to wail, but the silence in my throat was absolute.

“Finn… my little Finn…”

I had been reborn four times.

I did not love Tristan. In fact, the very sight of him made my stomach churn with hatred.

But I was forced to play this twisted game of romance.

Finn was a miracle we had through IVF. From the moment he took his first breath, I was his entire world. He was my only anchor, my sole emotional refuge in this bleak, artificial reality.

And then, on a random Tuesday, Tristan said he wanted to take his son to the park for some bonding time. Now, my son was a corpse.

I had foolishly believed a child could tether his wandering soul. What a naive, pathetic delusion.

A million needles pierced my heart simultaneously, shredding the organ into bloody ribbons.

This was my fourth attempt at saving Tristan, and the longest I had ever survived in a timeline. Yet, he still could not escape his pathetic obsession with the female lead.

In my past lives, I had snatched him from the jaws of Valerie’s cruelty more times than I could count.

When she and her goons cornered him to shatter his hands, I leaped out of the shadows and called the cops, preserving his future.

When she pushed him onto the subway tracks, I tore my own muscles apart dragging him back onto the platform.

When she orchestrated a hostile takeover that ruined his family and threw him behind bars, I worked myself to the bone, calling in every favor under the sun to get him out.

But Tristan was a glutton for punishment. In every single lifetime, he crawled back to his abuser, kissing the hand that struck him, and discarding me like garbage in the process.

Fortunately, whenever the System declared my mission a failure, I made sure to take Tristan down with me.

If I couldn't go back to my mother, he didn't deserve to breathe.

The haze in my eyes vanished, replaced by a cold, hardened resolve. I fixed my gaze on the rhythmic rise and fall of his chest.

I had already butchered him three times. A fourth wouldn't hurt.