Chapter 2

The drive back to the house was a blur of silent tears. Sarah clutched a small, soaked dinosaur toy she had pulled from the water' s edge, the last thing Ethan had been holding. The plastic was cold and hard in her hand, a solid piece of a nightmare that felt unreal. David drove, his face a stone mask, the silence in the car thick with unspoken horror and her suffocating grief. He had made a single phone call, and within an hour, men had arrived, the incident officially covered up as a tragic accident with no one to blame. David Miller, the high-ranking military official, was protected.

She walked through the front door of their large, empty house, her footsteps echoing in the grand foyer. She felt like a ghost. All she wanted was to go to Ethan' s room, to curl up in his bed, to smell his scent on his pillow, to hold onto the last remnants of her son.

She climbed the stairs, her body heavy with a sorrow so profound it was a physical weight. She pushed open the door to his room.

And she froze.

The room was wrong.

Ethan' s bright blue walls, covered in stickers of planets and spaceships, were gone. They were now a pale, sterile cream. His small bed, shaped like a race car, was gone. His toy chest, overflowing with colorful blocks and action figures, was gone. The bookshelf filled with his favorite stories was gone.

In their place were two workers, methodically dismantling the last pieces of a built-in closet. The floor was covered in drop cloths and tools. The air smelled of fresh paint.

The room, Ethan' s entire world, was being erased.

Sarah' s breath hitched. The dinosaur toy fell from her numb fingers, clattering on the hardwood floor.

Then she heard a soft laugh from the far corner of the room.

David was standing there, his arm wrapped around Lisa Johnson. Lisa, his beautiful, younger mistress, was dressed in a soft, flowing maternity dress. Her hand was resting protectively on her slightly rounded stomach. They were looking at paint swatches, smiling.

They looked happy.

They were celebrating.

The sight broke something deep inside Sarah. The grief that had been a silent, crushing weight erupted into a volcano of rage and disbelief.

"What... what is this?" Her voice was a raw whisper.

David turned, his expression one of mild annoyance at being interrupted. Lisa' s smile faltered slightly as she looked at Sarah, a flicker of something cold and triumphant in her eyes.

"We' re redecorating," David said simply, as if it were the most normal thing in the world. "Lisa needs a nursery."

A nursery.

Sarah stared at Lisa' s stomach, then back at the empty space where her son' s bed used to be. The pieces of the puzzle slammed together in her mind with brutal force.

"You' re... you' re taking his room?" she stammered, the words catching in her throat. "For... for that?"

"Ethan doesn' t need a room anymore, Sarah," David said, his voice laced with that same chilling indifference he' d shown at the lake. "He' s gone."

"He' s not gone!" Sarah' s voice rose, cracking with pain. "He' s dead! You killed him! Our son is dead, and you' re painting his room?"

David sighed, a sound of profound impatience. "Don' t be so dramatic. I told you, he failed the test. He showed he was weak. It' s a harsh reality, but one we must accept. This family needs a strong heir, not a liability."

He gestured around the room, a sweep of his hand that dismissed five years of a child' s life. "This space was being wasted on memories. We have a future to think about. Lisa is pregnant. We are having a child. A better child."

Each word was a nail hammered into her heart. He wasn't just erasing Ethan; he was replacing him. He was building a new life on the ashes of their son' s, and he expected her to stand by and watch.

Lisa snuggled closer to David, her expression a careful mix of sorrow and support for her man. "David, darling, maybe this is too soon for her," she murmured, loud enough for Sarah to hear. "She' s still emotional."

"She needs to face facts," David said, his voice hardening as he looked at Sarah. "Life moves on. We are moving on. This room will be for our new baby. A real Miller heir."

Sarah looked from David' s cold face to Lisa' s smug one, and then at the empty, sterile walls that had once been her son' s universe. The last piece of him was being systematically wiped away, and the people responsible were planning a party in its place. The betrayal was so absolute, so monstrous, it stole the air from her lungs.