Chapter 1 - Seventy-Two Hours After the Wedding
Three days after I married Mason Reed, he kicked our dining table into me because dinner was late.
The storm had turned my forty-minute commute into almost two hours. By the time I reached our suburban house, rain had soaked through my cream blouse and my hair was dripping down my neck.
“I’m sorry,” I told him. “Give me twenty minutes.”
Mason sat on the sofa staring at his phone.
He didn’t answer.
I should have stopped there.
Instead, I hurried into the kitchen.
For two years, that had been my habit.
Mason became cold.
I explained him to myself.
Mason became jealous.
I called it love.
Mason disliked certain friends.
I called him protective.
He questioned where I went after work.
I told myself marriage required transparency.
By the time I carried dinner into the dining room, I was already apologizing again.
Mason stood.
Then kicked the table.
Hard.
The entire thing slid toward me.
Plates crashed.
A wineglass shattered against the wall.
The edge of the table struck my legs and pushed me backward.
I hit the wall and fell.
For several seconds, I could not understand what had happened.
Mason stepped through the food and broken glass.
“We’re husband and wife now.”
He grabbed my hair and pulled me upright.
“Know your place.”
Something inside me went completely still.
Not because the words were unfamiliar.
Because they were.
Years earlier, someone else had spoken with that exact certainty inside my childhood home.
My father.
Before the night my family broke apart.
Mason gripped my chin.
“Your card. PIN. Everything.”
I jerked free.
“You’re insane.”
His hand lifted.
I looked directly at him.
“Put your hand down.”
He froze.
For the first time since I had known him, Mason looked uncertain.
Then his hand slowly lowered.
I turned toward the hallway.
That was when I saw it.
Something had fallen beneath the overturned table.
A photograph.
Old.
Creased.
I picked it up.
My stomach turned.
A teenage Mason stood inside a house I recognized instantly.
Green wallpaper.
Oak staircase.
Blue glass lamp.
My childhood home in Connecticut.
The home we left fifteen years earlier.
Mason lunged for the photograph.
I stepped back.
“Do you know my family?”
His expression changed.
Then he smiled.
Not warmly.
“I know them better than you think.”
“Mason.”
He moved closer.
“You want to know why I was in that house?”
“Yes.”
He lowered his voice.
“Because I’m your brother.”
For half a second, I forgot how to breathe.
Then I looked at his face.
Really looked.
And one thought cut through the panic.
“No.”
His smile vanished.
“You’re lying.”
“What?”
“My father had one son.”
Mason stared.
I continued:
“And he died fifteen years ago.”
May you like
The color drained from his face.
Because apparently I had just said something he hadn’t expected.
