I Left My Fiancé and His Mistress in the War Zone Recap…

An axe splits the cabin door. Not a hijacker. Not a rebel soldier. Tyler—the plane's own maintenance engineer, the captain's own fiancé—drives the blade into the metal and stands there, sobbing, screaming, begging, because one woman is not yet on board.

Behind him, hundreds of passengers are buckled in. Outside, bombers roar and explosions creep closer. And the plane cannot move.

The Axe at the Cabin Door

Megan Anderson is the captain of the last evacuation flight out of a country collapsing into war. A month before her wedding, everything fell apart—and she is the one holding the final door open.

The woman everyone is waiting on is Paige. She ran off to loot the duty-free shops while the evacuation was underway. Tyler refuses to leave without her. "Paige isn't back yet, so we can't leave," he says, demanding to know where she went, as if the captain of a rescue flight should have an answer.

The First Officer mutters the truth in Megan's ear: the window is closing, the rebels will be here any minute. A passenger—the man with glasses—points at the elderly, white-haired figure nearby: Logan Bennett, one of the world's foremost medical scientists, the key figure in this escort mission. He is sitting on this plane. He is also waiting.

Tyler's answer is ice. Their lives matter. Paige's doesn't.

Men rush him. He kicks them aside. The man with glasses curses that everyone else is supposed to die for one woman—and Tyler punches him back down, then slams the axe into the door as a warning to anyone else who wants to speak. The cabin goes dead silent.

The Wedding Day That Ended Everything

This is not the first time Megan has stood at this door.

In her first life, she knocked Tyler unconscious and took him with them. They made it back to New York, safe from the war. For a while, there was quiet happiness. She believed he had forgotten about that woman.

Then came their wedding day. Tyler tied her up. He drove his car straight at her. In the seconds before she died, he told her she was the one who killed Paige—that she had left her behind to be blown apart by a rebel missile. "She was just a girl who liked pretty things," he said. "What did she ever do wrong?" He promised her a death a thousand times worse than Paige's.

She saved three hundred people and he murdered her for it.

When Megan opened her eyes again, she was back at the exact moment Tyler walked to the cabin door. The axe still in his hands. The same screams. The same ticking clock. And this time, she decided, she would give him exactly what he wanted—let him and his dream girl keep each other company in hell.

"Tyler Is Right"

The First Officer hisses at her: talk some sense into your fiancé. There are 300 people on this plane besides Paige. The entire country is about to go into lockdown. This is our only chance.

Three pairs of eyes turn to Megan. Tyler whips around to look at her too—and something dark and delighted flickers in his gaze, like he already knows what she's going to say.

She draws a deep breath and makes a different choice.

"Tyler is right. We can't abandon any of our own."

The cabin erupts in angry jeers. Tyler visibly relaxes. A triumphant smile spreads across his face. The man with glasses curses that they're all insane, struggles to his feet—and Tyler punches him back down, then drives the axe into the door again, sweeping his glare across the passengers. Anyone else want to say something? Try me.

No one does. Only the growing thunder of explosions reminds everyone that danger is closing in.

Then Tyler's gaze softens as he turns to Megan. "I knew you'd understand." He leans down and presses a kiss to her forehead. "That's exactly why I chose to marry you in the end. You're not like other women. You never make a scene over Paige." He promises that once they're back, they'll get married right away, and he'll make it up to her.

Megan swallows the nausea rising in her throat and nods with feigned shyness.

She isn't agreeing with him. She's agreeing with the math. Every second he waits for Paige is a second he chose himself—and she has no intention of shielding him from it this time.

The Heels in the Distance

Black smoke billows on the horizon. The outlines of rebel armored vehicles are already visible. Tyler stares toward them, burning with anticipation, waiting for his salvation. The blasts draw nearer. Every eye in the cabin is fixed on the door.

Several young men finally lose their nerve and prepare to rush Tyler.

Then—the frantic click of heels echoes from the distance.

"Tyler, I'm here."

Paige has arrived. The plane still hasn't moved. The rebels are almost on top of them. And Megan is standing perfectly still, watching the man who killed her in another life finally get exactly what he asked for.