After My Death, He Regretted Madly

Chapter 1

Do souls actually exist after death?

After sticking by Javier Colton's side these past days, I finally got my answer.

The harsh, blinding white overhead lamp in the autopsy room cut right through my body, leaving not a single shadow on the floor.

My soul drifted weightlessly, and not a single person in the room could sense I was there.

I'd thought the end of the line had come when my undercover cover was blown during the Blue Coast operation.

But I never expected that when I woke up again, I'd be back at the police academy.

Even now, I still can't wrap my head around how our supposedly foolproof plan could have gone so spectacularly wrong.

The rock-solid evidence I'd risked everything to hide, the proof that would have put the mastermind behind bars, had been blown to smithereens in that dockside explosion, not a single scrap left intact.

At the thought, a bitter twist tugged at the corner of my mouth, and a thick, heavy weight of grief settled in my eyes, impossible to shake off.

Clink.

The sharp, clear sound of a scalpel tapping against a wax tray snapped me right out of my spiraling thoughts.

Javier pulled off his non-slip gloves, his voice cold and detached. "Conrad, has anyone come to claim the body in freezer 36 yet?"

I stared at his perfectly serious, unreadable expression, a faint, bittersweet ache stirred in my chest.

Javier was my fiancé. When I was alive, he hated my guts.

But now that I was dead, I was barely an inch away from him, and he had no clue I was even there.

His assistant, Conrad Bane, took the evidence bag and shook his head. "No."

Javier paused mid-step, his tone still flat and unfeeling. "Then we'll wait for word from Captain Morgan."

At those words, an unspeakable, aching bitterness pooled in my chest like an endless chasm, slowly eating away at me.

I stared at Javier. His uniform was still crisp and perfectly neat, not a single crease out of place, and the eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses looked as cold and unfeeling as they always had.

If he knew the Jane Doe in that freezer was me, would he still act this detached?

I glanced at his impassive profile, and my throat went tight. I dared not dig deeper into that thought, the bitter taste in my mouth only growing heavier.

I heard Conrad mumble under his breath, "How can someone be missing this long and not even have their parents come looking?"

Those words hit me like a punch to the gut. My wispy form swayed, and my gaze drifted to the sunlight streaming through the window, my mind going fuzzy.

Parents...

My dad was the head of the anti-narcotics unit, until he was killed on the job during a 2019 operation. When they brought his body back, there wasn't an inch of him left unbroken.

As for my mom? She'd cut me off completely three years earlier.

I couldn't tell anyone I was going undercover, so I lied and said I'd landed a super high-paying job overseas.

Mom called me a greedy, money-obsessed disgrace who threw away my dad's legacy without a second thought.

She tossed all my stuff out onto the porch, eyes blazing red with rage as she glared at me. "Get out, Jennifer! The Carmona family has no daughter like you anymore!"

I never saw her again before I died, and now? I was glad for it.

How was she supposed to handle this? Her only daughter, gone for three years, finally coming home not as the girl she remembered, but as a cold corpse locked inside a morgue freezer...

A sharp, stinging ache welled up in what was left of my nose. I could have screamed and sobbed my heart out right there, and no one would have even noticed. But souls don't cry. I had no tears to shed.

Whoosh.

Barely three seconds later, I popped back into existence right behind Javier.

I guess I was just that hung up on him. Ever since I'd woken up after dying, I couldn't seem to leave his side.

I watched as he sat down at his desk, lines of data flickered across his computer screen.

Just then, the door creaked open.

The man who walked in was Captain Morgan, the current captain of the investigations unit.

He dropped a stack of files straight onto Javier's desk, exhaustion etched all over his face. "Tell me, do you think this case is tied to the Blue Coast explosion a month back?"

I craned my neck to peek at the files automatically, and my breath caught. The very first page had my photo on it.

I was wearing my dark blue police uniform, the golden insignia on my shoulders glinting so bright it almost stung the eye.

Etched clear as day on the blue badge over my chest was my service number.

Jennifer, 293675.

I stared at that string of digits, and a slow, burning warmth spread through my chest. Warmth that quickly softened into quiet gratitude toward Captain Morgan.

He'd chosen not to release the candid shots of me taken during my undercover assignment in nightlife settings. He'd let me keep at least a scrap of dignity.

In the time since I died, I'd followed Javier everywhere around the precinct, so I'd heard all the scathing comments and ugly rumors flying around the station loud and clear.

"That Jennifer doesn't just disgrace her late father, Captain Carmona. She's a stain on the oath she swore under the American flag!"

"Who would've thought she'd let money rot her principles? Ran off to avoid charges, and no one's seen hide nor hair of her since."

Every single word landed on my heart like a red-hot needle. It drew no blood, but every inch of me ached.

I stared at the photo pinched between Javier's fingers, my eyes stinging fiercely.

"Believe me! I swore loyalty to my country, loyalty to the people, and I'd spent every single day fighting to keep that promise!"

That oath I'd shouted out under the bright sun all those years ago? I'd never forgotten it, not for a second.

RIP!

In one sharp motion, Javier tore my photo clean to shreds in his hands.

His voice was frigid enough to bite. "She got so many of our brothers killed. Does she even deserve to wear the same uniform as them?"