Chapter 1

The world was a scream of twisting metal and shattering glass. One moment, I was humming along to the radio, glancing in the rearview mirror at my son, Ethan, buckled in his car seat. The next, a violent jolt threw me against the steering wheel. Pain exploded in my head, but my only thought was of him.

"Ethan!"

I turned, my body screaming in protest. He was slumped over, quiet. Too quiet. Blood bloomed on his small blue t-shirt.

Footsteps crunched on the broken glass outside. My husband, David, yanked my door open. His face, usually so calm and controlled, was a mask of panic.

"Sarah! Are you okay?"

"Ethan," I choked out, pointing a trembling finger toward the back. "Check on Ethan."

He moved to the back door, his movements quick and efficient. He pulled my son from the wreckage. For a brief, insane moment, seeing David hold him, I felt a flicker of hope. He was a tech mogul, a man who solved impossible problems for a living. Surely, he could fix this.

He laid Ethan on the grass by the side of the road, his hands pressing against the small chest. I tried to get out, but a sharp agony in my leg made me cry out.

The wait for the ambulance felt like an eternity. In the emergency room, the world became a blur of bright lights, urgent voices, and the sterile smell of antiseptic. They wheeled me away from David and Ethan, and the last thing I saw was my husband' s face, etched with a convincing performance of worry.

A doctor with tired eyes finally came to my bedside. Her expression was all I needed to see.

"Mrs. Chen," she began, her voice soft with pity. "We did everything we could. Your son... he didn' t make it. I' m so sorry."

The words didn' t register at first. They were just sounds, meaningless noise. Then, the floor fell out from under me. A wave of blackness pulled me down, and I welcomed the oblivion.

I drifted in and out of consciousness, a prisoner in my own broken body. In one of those hazy moments, I heard David' s voice from the hallway, not the choked, grieving tone he' d used with me, but one I recognized from his board meetings-cold, sharp, and impatient.

"Just make sure it' s done. No loose ends."

A pause.

"Yes, the payment was sent. The problem is solved. Now I can finally move forward without any... distractions."

My eyes snapped open. The fog of grief and medication evaporated, replaced by a chilling clarity. A distraction? Was that what our son was to him? A problem that had been... solved?

The carefully constructed world of my marriage, the loving facade of our family, began to crumble into dust. The man I had loved, the father of my child, was a stranger. And his grief was a lie.