After My Sister Poisoned Me, My Husband Called It Mercy

The wind off the hills bit through my black wool coat, but the chill was nothing compared to the ice settling in my veins. I stood before the freshly turned earth of the private cemetery, staring at the tiny, unmarked plot. My eighth baby. The one I had sung to. The one I had bled for.

Beside me, Garrett adjusted his collar against the cold. He wrapped a heavy, comforting arm around my shoulders. "Take all the time you need, sweetheart," he murmured, pressing a warm kiss to my temple.

Before I could lean into the familiar lie of his embrace, his phone buzzed. He glanced at the screen, his jaw immediately tightening. "Work," he sighed, his voice thick with perfectly manufactured regret. "Give me one minute, Cat."

He walked away, his expensive leather shoes crunching softly on the gravel. Left alone, I sank to my knees, pressing my gloved hand to the freezing dirt. A phantom ache throbbed in my empty womb.

A groundskeeper in mud-stained overalls trudged past on the adjacent path, pushing a rusted wheelbarrow. I didn't mean to pry into his mind. I was still learning how to control the sudden, terrifying static that had awakened in my head after the coma. But as he passed, his internal frequency locked into my brain, loud and unmistakable.

*Rich folks are entirely sick,* the man's internal voice grumbled, dripping with disgust. *Paying me ten grand to bury a golden retriever in a human infant's plot. That Murray girl smiled the whole time she lowered the dog's urn into the dirt. Sick.*

My lungs seized. The gray sky above me seemed to fracture.

Bella. Nova's dog was resting where my child belonged.

I dug my fingernails into my palms until the skin broke inside my gloves, welcoming the sharp, grounding sting of pain. I didn't scream. I didn't weep. The naive, desperate girl who had loved Garrett Lawson died on the operating table three months ago. A violent tremor started in my knees and worked its way up to my ribs, forging itself into a core of absolute, burning rage. I would divorce him. But first, I would burn their entire world to ash.

Three hours later, the scent of stale coffee and fried grease at a roadside diner replaced the sterile, suffocating air of my life. I slid into a cracked vinyl booth on the outskirts of the city, pulling my scarf up to shield my face.

The man sitting across from me didn't wear tailored suits or platinum cufflinks. He wore a faded canvas jacket, and his eyes—my eyes—were hard and watchful. Jordan.

He didn't offer empty platitudes. Instead, he reached into his pocket and slid a creased, water-damaged photograph across the sticky Formica table. Two dirty-faced children holding hands on the porch of a foster home.

"It's me, Cat," he said, his voice a low, rough rumble that bypassed my defenses entirely. "I'm real. And I've got you."

The dam broke. My hands shook so violently I had to grip the edge of the table to keep them still. In a breathless, fractured whisper, I poured out the nightmare. The rigged truck. The hysterectomy orchestrated by the sister who stole my life. The dog in the grave. And the impossible, terrifying static in my head that let me hear the rot inside their souls.

Jordan didn't call me crazy. He didn't flinch. The muscles in his forearms went rigid, and his knuckles turned bone-white against the tabletop.

"They're done," he said, his tone deadly and absolute. He reached across the table, covering my trembling hands with his warm, calloused ones. "I'm your sword and your shield now. Tell me what you need."

By the time I returned to the Lawson mansion, my mask was flawlessly in place. At the long mahogany dining table, the clinking of heavy silver echoed in the cavernous room. Garrett sat at the head, swirling a glass of Cabernet. He adjusted his cufflinks—his nervous tell.

"How are you feeling after the outing, sweetheart?" he asked, his voice dripping with practiced warmth.

"Better," I lied smoothly, meeting his hazel eyes over the rim of my water glass. "Though my memory of the accident is still so blurry. Did the police ever figure out why the truck swerved?"

Garrett's expression shifted into a mask of solemn grief. "The police report said it was a tragic brake failure, Cat. Just a horrible, random accident."

But the air between us crackled, and his true voice invaded my skull, smug and self-assured.

*Good thing Mickey Vance knows how to cut a brake line cleanly. Best fifty grand I ever spent. The cops didn't suspect a thing.*

An image flashed vividly in Garrett's mind—a man with a jagged scar across his left cheek and a faded green snake tattoo crawling up his neck. Mickey Vance. The fixer.

I kept my face perfectly still, swallowing the bile rising in my throat. "A random accident," I echoed, letting the words hang in the heavy air. "How terrifying."

I set my glass down and offered him a thin, fragile smile. "I think I need to use the restroom. The new medication makes me a bit nauseous."

"Take your time, darling," Garrett said, already reaching for his wine.

I walked up the sweeping marble staircase, my spine straight, my steps measured. Once inside the master bathroom, I locked the heavy door and turned on the brass faucet to drown out any sound. My hands were perfectly steady as I pulled out the cheap burner phone Jordan had given me.

*His name is Mickey Vance,* I typed. *Scarred left cheek, snake tattoo on the neck. He cut the brakes.*

I hit send. The tug-of-war had begun, and Garrett didn't even know he was already bleeding.