Your throat closes.
You lean forward.
“Who are you?”
The question sounds insane.
You know her.
Your bones know her.
But your mind is standing at a grave three years old, screaming that this cannot be true.
She looks at you then.
“Julian,” she says, voice broken. “It’s me.”
You grip the edge of the bed.
“No.”
Her lips tremble.
“I’m Valeria.”
You stand so fast the chair scrapes the floor.
“I buried Valeria.”
She closes her eyes.
“No,” she whispers. “You buried my twin sister.”
The room tilts.
You reach for the wall.
“What?”
“Clara,” she says. “It was Clara in that coffin.”
Your wife had a twin sister.
Clara.
You had met her only a handful of times before she disappeared from family gatherings years ago. Clara had struggled with drugs, bad men, and long stretches of silence. Valeria loved her in the exhausted way people love someone they have tried to save too many times.
Clara was thinner than Valeria. Harder. Restless.
But the sisters had the same face.
The same hair.
The same eyes if you did not know what to look for.
You did know.
Or you thought you did.
You sit down slowly.
“Who did this?”
Valeria’s gaze flicks toward the door as if the name itself might enter.
“Rogan.”
Your blood turns cold.
Rogan Salter.
Your business partner. Your closest friend. The man who stood beside you at the funeral with one hand on your shoulder. The man who helped you identify the body after the car fire. The man who managed your accounts when you could barely get out of bed. The man waiting this very afternoon to close a land deal that would make both of you richer.
You shake your head.
“No.”
Valeria’s eyes fill with panic.
“Julian, listen to me. Please. You cannot let him know I’m alive.”
Something in her voice pulls you back from disbelief.
Raw fear.
Not confusion.
Not grief.
Fear.
You sit beside her again.
