Chapter 2

Sarah, still bound, twisted her head, working her jaw frantically.

The duct tape loosened just enough.

"Ethan!" she choked out, her voice raw, desperate. "Ethan, it's me!"

He turned, his expression one of mild annoyance, then derision.

He looked her up and down.

"Still trying, huh?" he scoffed, walking closer. "Even after watching your kids die, you're trying to get my attention? Desperate."

He thought she was one of the party barn' s usual women, trying to seduce him.

Tiff sauntered over, a lit cigarillo between her fingers.

She pressed the glowing tip to Sarah' s arm.

Sarah screamed, a muffled sound, the smell of burning flesh filling her nostrils.

Pain, sharp and searing, shot through her.

Tiff laughed, a high, cruel sound. "Does she look familiar, Ethan? Maybe like that wife of yours? Sarah Miller?"

Ethan snorted, not even glancing properly at Sarah' s face.

"Sarah? Don't be ridiculous, Tiff. My wife and kids are perfectly safe. Besides," he added, a smug look on his face, "they' d be wearing their lockets."

He tapped his chest. "The custom ones I had made. Gold, unique. Little trackers inside, after that security scare last year. No one gets near my family."

The lockets.

The beautiful, unique lockets he' d given them.

Sarah remembered the heavy gold on her neck, the smaller versions on Leo and Lily.

The kidnappers had ripped them off, tearing at her skin, the moment they' d been ambushed.

Of course. He wouldn't recognize her without the locket.

Or he chose not to.

The depth of his deception, the performative nature of every loving gesture, every protective word, crashed down on her.

He had built an entire narrative around those lockets, a symbol of his care, now a tool for his denial.

She was just some random woman, collateral damage in Tiff' s sick game, a game Ethan was clearly enjoying.

Her children were dead because he hadn' t recognized them, or hadn' t wanted to.

The pain from the burn was nothing compared to the ice spreading through her veins.