Chapter 9 - The Man Who Was Supposed to Be Dead|
That evening, I received a message from a number I didn't recognize.
There were no words.
Only a photograph.
It showed a man standing outside a warehouse in Brooklyn.
Dark hair.
Broad shoulders.
A crooked smile I would have recognized anywhere.
Jonah Ellis.
My husband.
Lily's father.
The man I had buried three years earlier.
My phone slipped from my hands.
Jonah had disappeared while I was pregnant.
The police told me he'd died in a warehouse fire. They recovered his wedding ring, his identification, and remains that officials said were his.
I had signed the death certificate.
I had stood beside an empty-looking coffin and wondered how I would raise our daughter alone.
Now his face stared back at me from a photograph taken that very morning.
I enlarged the image.
He looked older.
Thinner.
A faint scar ran along his jaw.
But it was Jonah.
My Jonah.
Before I could think, another message appeared.
Do not tell Dominic.
Then a third.
They will use Lily to finish what they started.
My hands began shaking.
Someone knocked.
I nearly screamed.
“Mara?”
It was Dominic.
I opened the door, trying to hide my phone.
He took one look at me.
“What happened?”
“Nothing.”
His eyes narrowed.
“You're trembling.”
“I just need to rest.”
Dominic stepped closer.
“Someone threatened you.”
It wasn't a question.
I shook my head.
But he had already seen the phone in my hand.
“Mara.”
His voice softened.
“Whatever you're hiding, you don't have to carry it alone.”
Something about those words nearly broke me.
For six years, Dominic had been a distant figure behind expensive doors.
A frightening employer.
A man who could make entire rooms fall silent.
Now he was standing in my doorway looking genuinely concerned.
I handed him the phone.
He studied the photograph.
His expression changed instantly.
“Where did you get this?”
“Someone sent it.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
Dominic zoomed in on Jonah's face.
Then he said something impossible.
“I know this man.”
My breath caught.
“You knew my husband?”
Dominic looked at me.
“Mara, Jonah Ellis worked for one of my companies.”
“What?”
“He was a security systems engineer.”
I stared at him.
Jonah had always told me he worked in commercial construction.
“He disappeared three years ago,” Dominic continued.
“After discovering someone had been manipulating our warehouse records.”
I could barely speak.
“You knew he was missing?”
“Yes.”
“Then why didn't you tell me?”
Dominic's face hardened with regret.
“Because I was told his family had already been notified.”
I stepped backward.
My eyes filled with angry tears.
“And you believed that?”
Before he answered, my phone vibrated again.
May you like
A new message.
Ask Dominic what happened in Warehouse Seventeen.
