Her voice was a death sentence.
“I may resemble the woman you lost, but don’t mistake me for her—and don’t you dare mistake me for someone you can break. If you ever make my son cry again, I will cut your heart out with a spoon and make you choke on it while it’s still beating.”
She paused.
A slow, wicked smile curved her mouth.
“And I will smile while I do it.”
Then she turned away—shoulders straight, head high, hips swaying with lethal grace.
She stood in the doorway like a divine punishment—an avenging angel carved from moonlight and wrath.
How dare she walk into my room and threaten me?
What gave her the spine to stand there, barefoot and shaking, and still look me in the eye like she wasn’t terrified?
Did she really have no idea who I am?
And the irony—her son came looking for me.
Of course I’ve always known there was more to her.
A woman who bears my late fiancée’s short name—Pen instead of Penelope.
A woman who has a son the exact age my son would have been.
A woman who looks like the ghost I buried—but not quite.
If only she knew.
If only she understood that every unanswered question wrapped around her only makes me hate her harder.
Violently.
So violently the entire room feels like it’s tilting.
I hate the face—my Penelope’s face—worn by someone who isn’t her.
I hate the sharper lines on her cheeks, cut by survival instead of laughter.
I hate the bruised shadows under her eyes.
I hate the tremor she tries to hide in her hands.
I hate the way she looks at me like I’m the worst thing that ever crawled out of hell.
And most of all—
I hate the way my traitorous body reacts the moment she breathes in my direction.
Like a starving man smelling bread.
Like a drowning man glimpsing air.
Like a sinner kneeling at the altar he burned with his own hands.
“If you have nothing to say,” I said, forcing the ice back into my voice as I turned toward the monitors, “get out.”
