The Ninth Minute Contract

Seren Vale is shot beneath the civic dome with a bloodied detonator clutched in her hand—and wakes nine minutes earlier, alive, framed for the mayor’s assassination. Before she can breathe, Ian Mercer, the gentle memory engineer she was hired to protect, whispers, “You’ve died here before.” Each time Seren fails to stop the explosion, death sends her back—but steals one precious memory in return. Ian alone remembers every loop, and the closer she gets to him, the more dangerously he hides the truth about her future. When someone begins rewriting the entire city’s memories, Seren can no longer tell whether Ian is her salvation, her enemy, or the man she’s already fallen for. A recording predicts that on the ninth loop, Seren will kill Ian—so to save the man who remembers everything, must she sacrifice the last memory of why she ever loved him?