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The truth was that I had lost her.

That she chose them over us. Over me. Over Henry.

That the six months of happiness we had—the wedding, the pregnancy, the birth of our son, the quiet mornings and lazy afternoons and nights wrapped up in each other—were just a dream, a beautiful impossible dream, and now I was awake, and the dream was over, and I was alone with our son in a house that was supposed to be our sanctuary, our fresh start, our forever home, but had become my prison.

A prison with cheerful yellow walls and a nursery full of stuffed animals and photographs of us smiling, frozen in a happiness that no longer existed.

I looked down at Henry, at his face that was so much like hers, and felt something break inside me. It was a physical sensation, like glass shattering in my chest, sharp and sudden and irreversible. His eyes were the same shade of winter as Madigan’s, that impossible color somewhere between frost and sea glass. The same stubborn set to his jaw. The same way his nose crinkled when he was confused or upset.

“I’m sorry,” I whispered, my voice cracking on the words. “I’m so sorry I couldn’t keep us together. I’m sorry I couldn’t protect what we had. I’m sorry I’m not enough.” My words tasted like ash in my mouth, like admitting defeat, like finally speaking aloud the truth I had been running from for months.

He looked up at me with those serious eyes, far too old and knowing, and I wondered what he saw. If he saw the man his mother fell in love with—the one who used to make her laugh until she couldn’t breathe, who promised her forever and meant it—or the monster that man was becoming. The one who was hollow inside, who couldn’t sleep without pills, who startled at every sound and checked the locks three times before bed.

If he could tell the difference anymore.

Because I wasn’t sure I could. The lines had blurred day by day until I didn’t recognize the man staring back at me in the mirror. Until I wasn’t certain where Salvatore ended and this broken thing began.

The phone rang, cutting through the silence like a knife.

I nearly dropped Henry in my haste to grab it, my heart slamming against my ribs like it was trying to break free. My hands shook so badly I almost couldn’t swipe to answer. Henry let out a small cry of protest as I fumbled him onto my hip, clutching him tighter than I should have, probably too tight, but I couldn’t seem to loosen my grip.

Unknown number.

My stomach dropped. My mouth went dry.

“Madigan?” I breathed into the phone, and I hated how desperate I sounded, how much hope and fear I could hear in that single word.

“Salvatore.” Her voice was small, broken, threaded through with tears, and the sound of it nearly brought me to my knees. I had to lock my legs to stay upright, to keep Henry safe in my arms even as everything inside me crumbled. “I’m so sorry. I’m so, so sorry.”

And I knew.

Before she said another word, I knew. I could hear it in the way her voice fractured, in the weight of the silence that followed, in the ragged sound of her breathing on the other end of the line.

She was not coming home.

CHAPTER NINETEEN

“Salvatore.”

“Don’t,” I said, my voice flat. Dead. “Don’t apologize.”

My words came out harder than I intended. Henry began to squirm in my arms, sensing the tension, and I forced myself to loosen my grip. To breathe. “Just... stop.”

“Salvatore, please.”

“Are you safe?” I cut her off because I couldn’t listen to her excuses, couldn’t hear her explain why she chose them over us.

“Yes.”

“Then that’s all I need to know.”

Silence stretched between us, heavy and suffocating. I could hear her crying, could picture her face, and it took everything in me not to break down with her.

“I love you,” she whispered. “I love you so much. I love Henry. Please believe me.”

“I believe you.” And I did. That was the worst part. I believed she loved us, and she still wasn’t coming home. “But love isn’t enough, is it?”

“Don’t say that. Please don’t.”