Chapter 33.

JASON.

The phone rings once before she picks up. I freeze, my heart thudding heavily in my chest as I hear her breathe on the other end. It’s her. Stacy. My Stacy. I open my mouth to speak, to say something that might fix everything. But all that comes out is a weak, desperate, “Stacy...”

There’s silence. A tension so thick I can feel it even through the phone. I swallow hard, my throat dry. “Please,” I plead, my voice trembling, “just hear me out. I need to talk—”

The line goes dead.

I stare at the phone in my hand, disbelief washing over me. She hung up on me. The knot in my stomach tightens, and I grip the phone so tightly my knuckles turn white. She’s avoiding me. But she can’t. Not anymore.

I’ve spent five years mourning her, thinking she and our son were gone forever. The pain of burying a child and wife… well, ex wife whom I still want... that grief never leaves. But now I know the truth. I felt it in that ballroom when I saw her. She’s alive. They’re alive.

This is all t