The ember that caught in me that night was not only rage.

It was also that: the beginning of trusting my own eyes again.

Chapter 10 — Forty-Eight Hours

Nicolas didn’t come back that night.

He didn’t answer my texts, and he didn’t check on the girls, who were staying with my sister.

The next morning he arrived with a private phlebotomist he’d hired to run an expedited legal DNA test.