Chapter 4

I wanted to be angry. I was angry. But under the sting of betrayal was a colder, sharper terror: my nine-year-old had been carrying a secret that heavy all by himself because he didn’t trust his own mother.

“You should have told me, Micah,” I said, my voice catching.

“You always choose them.” Micah’s chin wobbled, but his eyes stayed fierce and defensive. “You let Charlotte talk down to you like you’re nobody. You let Sean pay our electric bill when the shutoff notice came. You stood by the door and told me we had to smile for their family pictures so nobody would talk.”

“I do that so we have a roof over our heads,” I whispered, sitting on the edge of his mattress. “I do that so we survive.”

“Dad wouldn’t.”

The words hit like a physical blow. The air went out of my chest. I looked at his small hands gripping the edge of the blanket, knuckles red and raw.

“Your dad made mistakes, Micah,” I said softly. “Big ones. Dangerous ones.”

“Like what?” he demanded.

I couldn’t crush him with the truth yet. Not while he was holding on by a thread. “Like hiding things in the dark instead of asking for help before it was too late.”

He looked away, staring stubbornly at the wall. I didn't push him further. I reached out and gently asked to see the tablet. He hesitated, his small chest rising and falling, then pulled it from under his pillow and handed it over.

“Are you going to delete it?” he asked, voice small and terrified.

“No,” I told him firmly. “I’m going to protect it.”

The next morning, after leaving Micah safe with Tuck, I drove straight to Sean’s house. Not to forgive him, and not to make peace. I went to search. Sean wasn’t there, but his wife Charlotte was. She let me in with a tight, practiced smile and offered a glass of sweet tea that I left sweating on the kitchen island.

I pretended to need the restroom and slipped down the hall into Sean’s private study. The desk was meticulously organized, the bottom drawers locked tight. But on the brass key hook beside the door, Drew’s old locker key was still hanging among the spares. Sean had sworn on his brother's memory that he had cleared Drew’s locker two years ago. If that were true, why keep the key?

I took it and buried it inside my closed fist.

Charlotte caught me at the door. Her eyes went straight to my knuckles. “He’s not the villain you think,” she said.

“Then who is?”

She hesitated, and for the first time, I saw real cracks running through her polished face. “Be careful, Nora. Rawlings isn’t a man who forgives.”