Chapter 3: The Twin He Never Mentioned
I stared at it, my hands shaking so bad I almost dropped it. “I put that in his pocket three days ago.”
“You put it on the wrong man,” he said gently. “I’m Jude. Lucas’s twin brother. The one he told you died at birth.”
The world tilted under my feet. Twelve years of marriage. Thousands of nights talking, laughing, crying—and he’d never said a word about a brother.
“Your parents paid to have me adopted out the day we were born,” Jude went on. “Lucas found me six months ago. Tracked me down through old hospital records. Told me everything—about the debts, the threats, the plan to fake his death.”
He nodded at the coffin. “That’s a homeless drifter they paid fifty thousand to take his place. No family, no one to ask questions. They were going to bury the truth right along with him.”
Ethan knelt beside me, his voice trembling now but still steady. “Dad called me the night before he ‘died.’ Said if anything weird happened… if anyone looked just like him… bury the box first. Before they could cut it open.”
“Why?” I whispered.
“Because if they find out he’s alive… they’ll hunt us all down,” Jude said. “And they won’t stop until we’re all in the ground.”
Just then, two black SUVs skidded to a hard halt at the broken gate. Men in dark suits jumped out, hands reaching inside their jackets.
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