We can’t warn him that we’re coming.”
Ava nodded slowly.
“So what do we do?”
“Tonight, nothing.
We act normal.
You help me clean up the glass.
We eat dinner.
When Daniel comes home, we are fine.
Both of us.” I looked at her directly.
“Can you do that?”
Her jaw was tight.
“I’ve been doing it for five years.”
The words landed like a stone in still water.
She was right.
Every dinner, every holiday, every time Daniel had put his arm around her at Chloe’s grave and called her “our girl” — she had been sitting across from the man who had destroyed her life and smiling because she had no other choice.
I had adopted her to honor Chloe.
And without knowing it, I had placed her back inside the same house as the man she was most afraid of.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
