Before I could react, he leaned in, his voice low and urgent.

“Don’t scream. Please. Just listen.”

My whole body went cold.

“You died,” I whispered. “I buried you.”

“I know,” he said. “I had to.”

Nothing about that sentence made sense.

He started talking quickly, like he’d rehearsed it.

About his family. About money. About a deal he made behind my back. They had offered him everything—wealth, security, a future without limits—if he came back to them.

He accepted.

But not in the way they expected.

He took the money… and ran.

Faking his death was part of the plan.

I sat there, listening, trying to process the words while something inside me slowly broke apart.

“You let me think you were dead,” I said.

“I did it for us,” he insisted. “So we could be free.”

Continued on the next page