Chapter 3

The pounding on the panic room door was relentless, each blow vibrating through the steel and into our bones. Leo whimpered, burying his face in my side.

Sophia was on her phone again, her knuckles white as she clutched it. "Ethan, please! They're trying to break into the panic room! We're trapped!"

His voice, tinny and distant through the speaker, was sharp with annoyance. "For God's sake, Sophia! I told you, I'm busy! This is exactly the kind of drama Chloe warned me about. You and Ava, always trying to ruin things for me."

"It's not drama, Ethan!" I snatched the phone from Sophia, my voice raw. "They're here! The same men, or men like them! Don't you remember what happened?"

A cold silence. Then, Ethan's voice, low and dangerous. "Oh, I remember, Ava. I remember everything. And I remember you calling me, pulling me away. If you hadn't, Chloe wouldn't have been alone. She wouldn't have..." He trailed off, his voice thick with a self-serving grief.

"She lied to you, Ethan! She was manipulating you!"

"Chloe loved me!" he roared back. "Something you and Sophia clearly can't stand! You think I don't know you two resent her? Resent my happiness?"

My stomach twisted. He was truly lost. Reborn, yet utterly blind.

"There are men trying to kill us, Ethan! Your wife! Your son!"

"If anything happens," he said, his tone chillingly calm, "it's on your head, Ava. You're the one who always has to interfere. You and Sophia, with your endless schemes."

He hung up.

The finality of it, his absolute refusal to believe, to care, was like a physical blow.

Sophia was staring at me, her eyes wide with a dawning horror that had nothing to do with the men outside. "He... he knows? He remembers too?"

I nodded, unable to speak.

"And he still... he still blames us?" Her voice was barely a whisper.

The pounding outside intensified. A new sound joined it – a high-pitched whine, like a drill.

"They're trying to drill the lock," I breathed, my gaze fixed on the reinforced steel.

Leo started to cry, a thin, terrified wail.

"Shh, baby, shh," Sophia soothed, rocking him, though her own body was trembling.

How could he be so cold? So utterly devoid of any familial loyalty, any basic human decency? Last time, he'd seen the blood. He'd seen Sophia's lifeless body, Leo's mangled legs. Had Chloe's poison seeped so deep into his soul that even death and rebirth couldn't cleanse it?

*"Your sister and your wife are in it together."*

That one insidious lie. It had cost us everything once. It was about to cost us everything again.

The drilling sound stopped. There was a moment of tense silence, then a loud, metallic crack.

One of the bolts on the door visibly buckled.