The Charade and the Carving Knife
They said my husband, Ronan Callahan, the Underboss of Chicago's Callahan family, had died in a shootout with a rival family.
Nine times, I tried to join him in death, using the same carving knife I used for my gemstone work.
The tenth time, as I lay in a blood-stained bathtub, my consciousness fading, I heard Ronan's mother, Maeve, outside the door. Her voice trembled as she pleaded with my husband’s twin brother, Cormac—the one who’d always kept his distance from the family business.
She begged him to stop the act, saying I had already attempted suicide ten times over Ronan's death and that this charade would kill me.
But the man wearing Cormac’s face—my beloved husband, Ronan—replied in a chilling voice that Cormac had died in his place, and now he had to take care of Jenna and their unborn child.
He said he believed I was strong enough, and loved him enough, that once the dust settled, I would forgive him.
Lying in a pool of my own blood, I laughed.
So all my heartbreak and grief were just part of an elaborate deception he had orchestrated.
And I was nothing more than a pawn in his cruel charade.