The air inside the apartment suddenly felt too thin to breathe.
I stared at my husband — my brand-new husband — and for one terrible second, I couldn’t hear the rain anymore.
Only my heartbeat.
Slow.
Heavy.
Dangerous.
“What do you mean?” I whispered.
Callahan lowered his head.
“My father owned the building next to yours,” he said carefully. “The one undergoing renovations.”
My stomach twisted.
I remembered it instantly:
men coming and going for weeks,
the smell of gasoline in the alley,
my mother complaining that the workers cut corners.
“They found out later the gas lines had been tampered with,” Callahan continued. “Cheap illegal repairs. Faulty sealing. My father paid people to keep it quiet.”
I pulled my hands from his so fast the tea beside the bed rattled.
“No.”
“Merritt—”
“No.” I stood so quickly my knees nearly buckled. “You knew this whole time?”
“I didn’t know it was you at first.”
The words hit me like another blast wave.
Callahan’s blind eyes searched for me in the darkness as he stood carefully.
“When I first heard your last name at church, I started wondering,” he said. “Then I found the old newspaper articles.”
“And you still married me?”
His face crumpled.
“I fell in love with you.”
I laughed then — a sharp, broken sound that didn’t even sound human.
“You fell in love with me while hiding that your family destroyed my life?”
