Chapter 2
PART 2:
Julian stepped forward.
“He’s being cared for. You should calm down.”
Ethan looked at him.
Julian stopped walking.
Something in Ethan’s face warned him not to come closer.
Then Ethan noticed his wife’s hand.
It was tucked beside her hip, clenched tight, the fingers stiff beneath the satin lining.
At first, he thought grief was making him see things.
Then he saw the edge of something black pressed between her fingers.
He bent over the coffin.
Eleanor’s voice sharpened.
“Ethan, leave her alone.”
He ignored her.
Carefully, gently, he loosened his wife’s fingers one by one.
A tiny memory card fell into his palm.
The room went silent.
Ethan stared at it.
Then he looked at his mother.
“What was she hiding from you?”
Eleanor’s face turned white.
Before she could answer, the front door opened hard.
A military investigator stepped inside with two police officers behind him.
His eyes swept over Eleanor.
Then Julian.
Then the coffin.
“Major Vance,” he said, “don’t let anyone leave this house.”
Ethan closed his fist around the memory card.
Upstairs, his son screamed.
And this time, everyone in the room heard the sound for what it was.
Not a baby crying.
A witness.
Six months earlier, Ethan had left for deployment believing his wife was safe.
That was the lie that would haunt him most.
She had smiled at the airport with one hand on her belly and the other gripping his dog tags.
She was seven months pregnant then, glowing and tired, trying to be brave because she knew he already felt guilty for leaving.
“I’ll be home before he’s born,” Ethan promised.
She tried to smile.
“You’d better be. I’m not doing the hard part alone.”
He kissed her forehead.
Then her belly.
Then he looked at his mother standing a few feet away.
“Take care of her,” he said.
Eleanor placed a hand over her heart.
“Of course. She’s family.”
Ethan believed her.
Because she was his mother.
Because he wanted to believe his wife had someone while he was overseas.
May you like
Because he did not know Eleanor had never forgiven his wife for becoming the most important woman in his life.
👉 But while Ethan was overseas, Eleanor and Julian began circling the woman he had trusted them to protect…
