wife if she knew our families shared such a terrible secret?”
Jonah took a step toward me.
“I don’t know everything yet. But I promise you, I never knew who your mother was until I started investigating after my release.”
I wanted to believe him.
But I had learned that love could make a person ignore the very things they needed to see.
And I couldn’t afford to make that mistake again.
“I’m taking my brother home,” I said.
Jonah nodded slowly.
“I understand.”
He didn’t try to stop me.
Somehow, that hurt even more.
That night, I locked myself inside my apartment with my brother.
I barely slept.
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw my mother’s face in that photograph.
The woman who had raised me alone. The woman who had worked until her hands were cracked and bleeding. The woman who had always told me that some secrets were buried because the truth could destroy innocent people.
I had thought she was talking about my father abandoning us.
Now I wondered whether she had been warning
