Chapter 2

Fourteen years. I had spent fourteen years of my life in a concrete box, for two crimes I didn't commit.

Fourteen years of waking up to a bell, eating slop, and watching my back every second of every day.

All while Liam, my half-brother, the trust fund kid who had everything, lived my life. He took my fiancée. He took my inheritance. He lived in a mansion, went to fancy parties, and built a career on the money that should have been mine.

He did it all without an ounce of guilt, because Sarah had made sure he was safe. She had built a fortress of lies around him, and I was the stone used for its foundation.

I found a cheap motel on the outskirts of the city, the kind that charges by the hour. I sat on the edge of the lumpy mattress, the springs groaning under my weight. The room smelled of stale cigarettes and disinfectant.

My phone, a cheap burner I' d bought with the cash the prison gave me, buzzed. It was Sarah. I ignored it. It buzzed again. And again. Finally, I answered, my voice a raw rasp.

"What do you want?"

"Ethan! Thank God! Where are you? I was so worried," her voice was filled with that fake, practiced concern I now recognized.

"Why would you be worried, Sarah?" I asked, my tone flat.

"I went to the house, and you weren't there. I thought something might have happened. I have something for you. A little something to help you get back on your feet."

A little something. A compensation package for fourteen years of my life. The audacity of it made me sick.

"What is it?" I asked, playing along.

"Liam feels terrible about everything you' ve been through," she said, her voice smooth as silk. "He' s set up a trust for you. A hundred thousand dollars. Enough to get a small apartment, a car. A fresh start."

One hundred thousand dollars. The price they put on my parents' lives and my stolen future. It was an insult. It was less than the cost of the car Liam had been driving when he ran my parents off the road.

"That' s generous of him," I said, my voice dripping with an irony she completely missed.

"He' s a good man, Ethan. He just… he made a mistake when he was young."

A mistake. She called it a mistake. He got drunk, killed two people, and framed his own brother to save his skin.

"He has a family to protect now," she continued, as if that justified everything. "Olivia and the kids. He couldn' t let this ruin their future."

So my future was the acceptable sacrifice. My life was the price for theirs. The pieces were clicking into place, horrifyingly clear.

"You know, Sarah," I said, my voice dropping low. "I think seeing me makes you sick."

There was a sharp intake of breath on the other end of the line. "What? Ethan, don' t be ridiculous. I married you. I stood by you."

"Did you?" I countered. "Or did you stand by Liam, using me as a shield? I remember now. After the first trial. You convinced me not to testify. You said the jury would see me as unstable if I accused my own brother with no proof. You said it would make me look guilty."

"I was trying to protect you!" she insisted, her voice rising.

"No. You were protecting him." A memory surfaced, sharp and ugly. A visit, early in my first sentence. I had a black eye and a split lip. I told her about the inmate, Jake, who kept coming after me, saying I was a scumbag who killed my own family.

"What did you tell him?" Sarah had asked, her eyes wide with concern.

I told her I kept my mouth shut, just like she advised.

She had patted my hand. "Good. Don' t cause any trouble. Just keep your head down."

Now I understood. She wasn' t worried about me. She was worried I would tell someone the truth. Another memory hit me, this one from my second sentence. I was in the prison workshop when a piece of machinery malfunctioned, a safety guard removed. A blade came loose, flying past my head and burying itself in the wall. It was inches from my face. At the time, I thought it was a random accident.

Now I wasn' t so sure.

"That fight in my first term," I said slowly, the realization dawning on me. "The one with Jake. He said his mother was killed by a hit-and-run driver who got away with it. He said he hated people like me."

Silence on the other end of the line.

"You put him in there, didn't you, Sarah? You found an inmate with a grudge, someone you could manipulate. You told him I was responsible for his mother's death, didn't you? You didn' t just let me rot in prison, you made sure I was a target."

"Ethan, you' re not making any sense," she said, but her voice was shaking.

"And the embezzlement," I pushed on, the poison finally finding its way out. "Your mother' s 'mistake' . How convenient. Just when I get out, just when I might start asking questions, you find a way to silence me again. Another seven years. Did Liam pay for that, too? Was that part of the deal? You keep me locked up, and he keeps you and Olivia in luxury?"

"You did that to help me!" she shrieked. "You offered!"

"You cried on my shoulder and begged me to save your family!" I yelled back, my control finally snapping. "You played on my gratitude, my loyalty, my love for you! You knew I would do it. You counted on it."

The pieces fit together into a monstrous picture of betrayal. She hadn' t just framed me. She had actively worked to make my life a living hell, to keep me broken and scared, all to protect the man she truly loved. The man who had murdered my parents.

"I heard you, Sarah," I said, my voice suddenly calm, dead. "I was at the house. I heard you and your mother talking in the living room. I heard everything."

The silence that followed was absolute. I could almost feel her shock, her panic, radiating through the phone. She didn' t deny it. She couldn' t.

I hung up the phone and threw it against the wall. It shattered into pieces, just like my life.