Chapter 2

"You should leave." I turned and headed back inside. "Caleb is already gone."

Lydia came into the yard in two steps and grabbed my arm. Her manicure was long, and her nails dug into my flesh hard enough to make me wince.

She asked, "I'll ask you one more time. Where is he?"

"Let go," I told her.

"I'm not leaving today unless you tell me," she said with a growl.

I stared at her hand. It was the same hand that had once held Caleb's arm in their wedding photos.

And with that same hand, she had ordered her men to choke him and pin him against a wall.

Caleb had told me what that suffocation felt like.

"Noah, when she had them choke me, I saw black spots dancing on the ceiling."

"Let. Go." I slowly forced out each word.

Evan tugged at Lydia's sleeve from behind. "Lydia, don't do this. He's still a kid. Why don't we go inside and sit down? Can we talk to him properly?"

Lydia let go and took a deep breath, as if she were holding back her anger.

"Caleb really is dead," I said.

Lydia's composure finally cracked. But what came underneath was not grief, but rage.

"Noah, do you know Evan almost died and couldn't be saved because Caleb ran away this time?"

Her voice went lower.

"I forgave him the last time he ran. This time, he ran again and even taught you to lie to me. Does he think this will make me feel sorry for him? Does he think I'll go back and look for him?"

She stepped closer and looked down at me.

"Tell him to stop dreaming! He means nothing to me when Evan is here. If it isn't because his blood type and bone marrow hadn't been useful, I never would have married him in the first place."

I raised my head and looked into her eyes.

Caleb had told me Lydia once loved him. In the first year of their marriage, she dried his hair for him. She stayed up all night when he was sick. She drove across half the city just because he had mentioned wanting toasted pine nuts.

Then Evan came back, and everything changed.

Evan "accidentally" mentioned that Caleb had eaten with another woman.

Evan "carelessly" let Caleb see his chat history with Lydia.

Evan "thoughtfully" advised Lydia that Caleb might just be too lonely.

Slowly, Lydia began to doubt Caleb. She began to suspect him and found him disgusting.

In the end, all that love turned into hatred. Enough hatred that she wanted Caleb's kidney to be cut out and given to another man.

"I'm not lying to you," I said.

Lydia sneered, then turned to Evan. "Evan, wait in the car. I need a proper talk with him."

Evan nodded. When he walked past me, he stopped, leaned close to my ear, and whispered so only I could hear. "How pitiful is your brother. He's such a coward, he'd rather fake his death and hide."

My nails dug into my palms, but I said nothing.