Though he may have looked the part, Declan Brady never really fit in at these things. He stood mostly alone at the bar in the corner of the Grandview Hotel ballroom as his colleagues engaged in the way they always did after an eight-figure verdict, partners drifting around congratulating themselves while associates jockeyed for face time, everyone drinking a little too much of the high-end stuff and speaking in that shrill pitch of overexcitement.

“That was a command performance you gave today, my son,” Father Santos said. The kind-eyed priest in his simple black clerical attire and silver cross seemed almost subversive among all the evening gowns and Hermès ties. The look of him, Declan noticed, had drawn more than a few glances from the many lawyers in the room who’d never quite figured out how a man could want to work for something other than money.

“Was nervous as hell, so that’s nice to hear.” Declan held up his glass, a sixteen-year-old Irish whiskey on the rocks, courtesy of the firm. “Why do you think they keep me so well lubricated?”

Father Santos smiled warmly.

“Anyway, Dr. Vallance was the real hero,” Declan said. “Takes courage to do the right thing when you know what it’ll cost.”

He glanced to the far corner of the room, where Dr. Elena Vallance was nervously accepting congratulations from a small mob of associates. She looked relieved to have the ordeal behind her, but also like this was the last place in the world she wanted to be.

“Courage is a given. But it also takes faith.” Father Santos furrowed his brow and looked down into his club soda. “Elena had to have faith that justice would be worth the sacrifice.”

“You’re quite the fucking poet, you know that?”

The priest’s laugh lightened the gilded air.

“Or maybe you’re recruiting,” Declan said.

“Maybe. But then again, maybe not. Watching you work today reminded me of something. You have a calling, Declan. The way you fought for Elena, the passion in your voice… That’s much more than just legal skill. That’s vocation.”

Though his initial thought was to resist the idea, the more honest part of him saw the point. Declan had worked hard to put himself in this position. And he was a damn good lawyer. At thirty-nine, he possessed the kind of commanding presence crafted for courtrooms: six feet two inches of controlled intensity, with dark hair beginning to show threads of silver at the temples and a thoughtful gaze just as effective at dissecting a witness as charming a jury. His charcoal Armani suit cut a precise silhouette across his athletic frame, while his hands still bore the faint calluses he’d first developed as a high school kid working summers at his family’s construction business.

“Vocation.” He let the word swirl around in his mouth. “Maybe. More likely I just fight for whoever pays the biggest retainer.”

“Is that what you tell yourself?”

“Don’t have to tell myself anything. I know.”

“If you say so.”

“No, I mean it. You want to know what I’m doing on Monday?”

The priest nodded.

“Meeting with a musician suing his manager over supposedly stealing his music. Kid has no chance and even less talent. Want to know why I’m going to talk to him anyway?”

The priest raised his eyebrows.

“Billable hours,” Declan said.

“Well, that may be true, but the Declan Brady I’ve come to know doesn’t take cases just for the money. He takes them because someone needs a champion. That’s a very different kind of calling.”

“Vocation.”

“Now you see the light.”

After a wry smile, Declan drained his whiskey, then caught the bartender’s eye for another before he could think better of it. Somewhere just on the edge of his hearing, one of the senior partners was sharing another of his mostly bullshit war stories, and a cluster of associates laughed too loudly at a quip that wasn’t remotely funny.

“You know something?” Declan said. “I considered the seminary once. Long time ago.”

A sudden glint in his eyes, Father Santos’s posture changed. “What stopped you?”

“I met a very different kind of Grace.” Declan broke into a softer, more boyish smile. “Sophomore year, Northwestern. She was studying literature; I was a philosophy and theology double-major.”

“So you weren’t always after the big bucks,” the priest quipped.

“Happened to get in line in front of my future wife at the Starbucks in Norris. Left my card at the counter and Grace called my attention to it. You should have seen her, Father. All thoughts of celibacy went right out the window.”

Father Santos chuckled. “Marriage is its own kind of vocation.”

“Oh, is that right?”

A slight blush reached his cheeks. “So I’m told.”

Before he could rib the priest again, Declan’s phone buzzed against his chest. He pulled it from his jacket pocket and glanced at the screen before declining the call. Funny how much had changed about the feeling he would get whenever he saw that name. Grace. Not now. Not long ago, he would have accepted any excuse to answer, and any excuse to leave this party early to go home to his Grace. But things between him and his wife hadn’t exactly been soaring lately. Not for the first time, he considered mentioning this to Father Santos, but he knew the specific reasons for the marital strain would only make the priest uncomfortable. So he slipped the phone back into his pocket and ignored the flicker in his heart, that old Catholic guilt.

“She’d like you,” Declan said. “Grace, I mean.”

“And where is she this evening?” Santos asked as if reading Declan’s anxiety.

“Home with the kids.” Declan checked his Rolex. He’d promised he would get home in time to read them to bed. Still had time. “Michael’s six, Sarah’s four.”

“Biblical names.”

“Well, we’re Catholic after all. Or at least I am. And the kids go with me most Sundays.” Inwardly, Declan chided himself. He’d volunteered more than he intended. Fucking whiskey.

When it looked like Father Santos would seize on the mistake and ask the awkward question, Declan quickly misdirected.

“Sarah made me a cape last week. Said I should wear it to court for good luck.”

“Well that’s strange…” Father Santos said, glancing behind Declan as if making sure he hadn’t missed anything. “I didn’t see a cape.”

Declan smirked. “Construction paper and crayon tied together with a shoestring. Not sure the judge would’ve allowed it.”

“The love of a child. It’s the closest thing to divine grace most of us ever experience.”

“Now hold on, Father. I didn’t know you were one of those kinds of priests.”

Grace would have loved the dig. Father Santos, though, took a while to register it. When he finally did, he handled it with grace of some kind, if not the divine variety. “You know what I mean,” he said, blushing again.

Declan was about to respond when his phone buzzed against his chest again. Another one from Grace. Now he felt a flash of irritation before declining the call. He’d texted her after the verdict, told her about the party. He loved her dearly, but he was still a little frustrated with her after what she’d said about his faith. And anyway, couldn’t she give him a few hours to decompress?

Call you shortly, he texted. The bubbles of a reply in progress immediately jumped to the screen. He pocketed the phone before the message could come through, then turned his attention back to Father Santos. While he was distracted, the bartender had brought him another glass of the whiskey. Sneaky bastard. Declan didn’t need it, and now he would have to call for a rideshare and figure out how to return for his car tomorrow, but he took it anyway.

“I’ve spent fifteen years in parishes and five in mission work,” Father Santos was saying. “So I know a servant’s heart when I see one, Declan. Whether that service happens in a church or a courtroom doesn’t matter to God. What matters is that you’re using your gifts to protect the vulnerable.”

“Mission work?” The subject had always fascinated Declan, and it showed in his voice. “Where?”

As he spoke of the missions he’d served in places like Uganda and Sudan, Father Santos looked as if he were talking about his own children. “It’s the purest form of service I’ve ever experienced. No politics, no institutional bureaucracy. Just human need and the calling to meet it.”

The burn of the whiskey chased down Declan’s throat, and now he recognized that he was drunk enough to actually notice the complexities of it. It left behind notes of dried fruit, spice, and somehow, both vanilla and chocolate at once. “Sounds like paradise.”

“Some days. Other days, it’s heartbreaking. But it’s real in a way that parish work sometimes isn’t. When you’re building a school for orphans or treating wounds in a refugee camp, there’s no question about whether you’re serving God. The need is immediate. And the impact is something you can actually feel.”

“You’re a better man than I.”

“Wouldn’t say that. But clearly you chose the right path. You’re no priest.”

Declan toasted to that. Then he glanced at his watch. Grace would be sitting the kids down for dinner by now. Sarah would be putting up her nightly fight about whatever Grace had decided to serve. She only ever reliably ate cheese and bread or plain pasta, and a part of Declan loved her for her pickiness, even if it made meals a chore. Michael would be doodling on the sketch pad he always kept with him, not really paying attention to his food. Declan felt another pang of something—not quite longing, but an awareness of absence.

Two days ago, Grace had suggested he shouldn’t take the kids to Sunday Mass anymore. When he’d demanded to know why, she said she feared they’d gotten old enough that they would have to worry about…

She hadn’t bothered to speak the thought aloud. But they both knew her position on why she’d left the Church. To Declan, that decision had always seemed too readily made, her conviction too obtuse. Yes, the Church had made considerable mistakes on the matter of pedophile priests, but to him, that didn’t mean the institution was flawed. Punish the priests, certainly, and the bishops who covered up for them as well. But to turn your back on the faith?

When his phone buzzed again, he didn’t even look at it, just let it buzz against his chest like an insect so small he didn’t need to bother swatting it.

Across the room, he caught sight of someone he’d noticed several times already and had been trying to avoid looking at again. And there was no questioning that she had eyes on him as well. Kate Morrison was one of the younger associates who’d done paralegal work on the case. Mid-twenties, sharp as a blade, with dark hair that fell in waves past her shoulders and a figure that her conservative court attire could only ever partially conceal, she was difficult not to notice. Tonight she wore a black cocktail dress that made no attempt at concealment. She’d been watching him all evening, he realized, her gaze following him even as she pretended to engage in conversation with other associates.

When their eyes met across the crowd, she smiled, slow and knowing, then turned back to her conversation. Maybe he was imagining it, or maybe he was just drunk, but something in that smile made Declan’s pulse quicken in a way he hadn’t experienced in a long time.

He turned back to Father Santos, who was saying something about the redemptive power of service, but by now, Declan’s attention had fractured. Part of him tracked the priest’s words, nodding at the appropriate moments. Part of him was aware of Kate’s presence across the room, of the way she moved, the curve of her neck as she laughed at someone’s joke.

Eventually, Father Santos departed for the restroom, and Declan found himself alone at the bar with his latest whiskey, and it was all he could do not to look at Kate Morrison. She was moving through the crowd now, working her way in his direction with what struck Declan as a deliberately casual gait. When she reached him, she stood close enough that he could smell her perfume, something expensive and maybe slightly too mature for someone still in her twenties.

“Congratulations, Mr. Brady,” she said, and the way she spoke his name felt intimate. “That closing argument was masterful.”

“Declan,” he corrected her.

“Declan.”

“Team effort. Couldn’t have done it without your research on the clinical trials.”

“Glad you noticed.” Her shoulder brushed against his as she leaned against the bar.

Declan should have deflected. Instead, he heard himself saying, “Oh, I noticed.”

Her smile widened. “Good.” She glanced around the room, then back to him. “These parties are exhausting, aren’t they? All this performance, and everyone congratulating themselves for doing their jobs.”

“Necessary evil,” Declan said. “You want to be partner? Gotta put in the ass-kissing.” There was no denying it; he was well and proper drunk now.

“That so?” Kate called the bartender for a vodka tonic, double. “Or is it just another way the firm controls us? Here we all are, kissing ass for the privilege of killing ourselves for their profit.”

The cynicism surprised him. Most associates at her age remained true believers in the system. Bill all day and into the night. Kiss ass at every opportunity. Maybe make partner one day. “Sounds like someone’s having doubts about the path.”

“Not doubts. Just... let’s call it clarity.” She accepted her drink from the bartender, took a sip. “I know exactly what I’m doing here, and why. No illusions.”

“And what are you doing here?”

“Learning from the best.” Her eyes met his. “And waiting for the right moment.”

The implication was unmistakable now. Declan felt the heat rise in him. Kate was brilliant and ambitious and more than a little attractive, but she was also a coworker, and at least twelve years his junior. There were so many lines he knew he couldn’t cross.

“Kate—”

She pressed something into his palm. A key card. “Room 1247,” she said quietly. “In case you want to discuss... strategy. Away from all the noise.”

Before he could respond, she moved away, disappearing back into the crowd with the same casual stride she’d used to approach. Declan looked down at the key card in his hand, and all the temptation it represented. He knew he should throw it away. Should find Father Santos, make his excuses, say goodbye, go home to his wife and children.

Instead, he slipped the key card into his jacket pocket and ordered another drink.

He couldn’t be sure how much time passed. Twenty minutes maybe. Enough time to finish his whiskey. But now Declan found himself standing by the elevators. And already, his thumb was pressing the button for the twelfth floor, and then the elevator doors were closing, and now he was imagining what Kate Morrison looked like with that black cocktail dress tangled up around her waist.

The ride up might have taken an instant, or maybe it had felt like an hour. Declan’s heart hammered against his ribs as he walked down the carpeted hallway, following the room numbers. 1241, 1243, 1245. He could still turn back. The thought repeated like a mantra, even as his legs carried him forward. 1247.

He stood outside the door for a long moment, key card in hand, aware that everything would change the moment he used it, and not just with his marriage or his family, but with his own understanding of who he was and what he was capable of. There’d been plenty of opportunities, and he’d always been faithful to Grace, had prided himself on his fidelity. Maybe this latest case had taken too much out of him. Or maybe the noise back home had gotten a little too loud. Or maybe it was just the whiskey. There were no real excuses here. Not good ones, anyway. He knew that. But still Declan Brady found himself sliding the key card through the reader.

The lock blinked green. He went inside.

Table lamps cast warm pools of light that mixed with the golden hour shine coming in through the window. Music played softly from a phone on the nightstand—something with a slow, insistent beat that felt designed for this exact moment. Kate stood by the window, her back to him. She was still wearing the black cocktail dress, and she’d let down her hair so it spilled across her bare shoulders.

“I’d convinced myself you weren’t coming,” she said without turning around.

“Almost didn’t.”

“But you did.” Now she turned, and Declan saw she’d removed her shoes and refreshed her makeup, her lipstick a deeper shade of red. “Which means you want to be here.”

Did he? Declan couldn’t quite remember wanting to be here, only the moment-by-moment choices that had led him to this room. But Kate was right. He’d made those choices. Maybe he was drunk, sure, but no one had forced him. He remained under his own control.

“Helped myself to a bottle from the party,” she said as she moved toward the champagne in the ice bucket on the desk. “Figured if we’re going to celebrate your victory, we should do it properly.”

She’d already popped the cork prior to his arrival. She refilled her glass first before pouring one for him and handing it over. Their fingers touched as he accepted it, and the contact sent electricity up his arm. When was the last time Grace had made him feel desired like this?

“To justice,” Kate said, raising her glass.

Declan drank. The champagne was excellent, crisp and cold and expensive. He’d built a life on acquiring expensive things.

The young woman standing before him suddenly looked expensive. She set down her glass and moved close enough that he could feel the heat radiating from her skin. “I’ve wanted this since the depositions in April,” she said quietly. “Watching you work. You made that smug asshole CEO sweat. It was... attractive.”

“Kate, you’re—”

“I know what I am,” she interrupted. “And I know exactly what I’m doing. The question is, do you?”

Rather than answer, Declan finished his champagne. Kate took his empty glass, set it aside, then returned to stand even closer. Her perfume enveloped him, something with notes of jasmine and vanilla.

“You can still leave,” she said in a voice barely above a whisper. “No harm, no foul. We’ll pretend this never happened.”

But she was already reaching up to loosen his tie. Declan’s breath caught as her hands moved to his chest, unbuttoning his collar. This was the moment. The line. Once crossed, there would be no pretending it hadn’t happened.

His phone buzzed in his jacket pocket.

Both of them froze. Kate’s eyes flicked toward the sound, then back to his face.

“You gonna get that?” she asked.

Declan pulled out his phone. The screen glowed with her name. He stared at it for a long moment, thumb hovering over the answer button. Grace. His wife. The mother of his children. The woman who’d given up her own dreams to support his ambitions. She’d always tried to understand the demands of his work. And his faith. But she’d never fully bought into either.

Kate watched him, her expression unreadable. “Your wife?”

“Yes.”

“You came up here, Dec. You already made your choice.”

Had he? Or was there still time to answer the phone and apologize and find some way back to the man he was supposed to be?

His thumb moved. But instead of pressing the green button to answer, it pressed the red one to decline.

The screen went dark. The moment passed.

Kate smiled, slow and victorious, and reached up to resume unbuttoning his shirt. “Now we can stop pretending,” she whispered.

She pressed against him, her lips finding his neck, her hands working at his belt. Declan’s mind went blissfully blank as she walked him backward toward the bed, as the room seemed to tilt and narrow until there was nothing but her touch, her breath, the way she looked at him like he was something precious and dangerous.

She pushed him onto the bed, straddling him. Her gaze was hungry as she reached behind her back to unzip her dress. The fabric parted, fell away, revealing black lace that left almost nothing to imagination. Declan’s hands moved to her waist, then higher, following the curve of her ribs, the softness of her skin.

“This is what you wanted,” Kate said as she leaned down to kiss him. “This is why you came up here.”

Was it? Declan couldn’t remember anymore. All he knew was the consumption of her, the way his heart hammered with desire, then guilt, then desire again.

They kissed for long minutes, her fingers in his hair as his hands explored her body. She ground against him, making small sounds of satisfaction. This was wrong, catastrophically wrong, but it felt like the first honest thing he’d done in years.

Kate pulled back slightly, her eyes dark with desire. “I’ve thought about what you’d be like,” she murmured between kisses. “Whether you’d be as commanding here as you are in court.”

When Declan reached for her again, she pushed his hands away playfully. “My turn first,” she said. “Just let me...”

She had his shirt open now, her hands on his bare chest. She leaned down to kiss his collarbone, his neck. He sucked in a breath, desperate for her. Her hair fell around them like a curtain as her hands moved lower, working at his belt buckle, and Declan felt himself responding despite the guilt churning in his gut. She kissed him again, deep and demanding, her tongue in his mouth, her body pressing fiercely against him.

“Kate,” he managed between kisses. “We should—”

“Shh,” she whispered, her fingers at his zipper now. “Stop thinking. Just feel.”

God, he tried. He ran his hands over her body, tried to lose himself in the sensation. But then, just as she removed the last barriers between them, as she whispered what she wanted to do to him, an image flashed through his mind with devastating clarity:

Sarah delivering him that cape, telling him to wear it for good luck.

The words erupted from somewhere deep in Declan’s chest. “I can’t. I can’t do this.”

Hands still on him, Kate froze. Her expression moved from surprise to something harder. “What?”

“I have to go.” Declan sat up and reached for his shirt with shaking hands. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have come here.”

“You’re serious? You came up here… You let me—” She shoved backward onto her feet.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He was buttoning his shirt wrong, having to start over, his fingers clumsy with panic and guilt. “This was a mistake.”

“A mistake?” Kate stood there with a darkening expression. “You’re the one who came to my room. You wanted this, Declan. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”

“You’re right. I did. But I can’t—” He found his jacket, shrugged it on, looked around for anything else he might have forgotten. “I have a family.”

“You had a family twenty minutes ago,” Kate shot back. “That didn’t stop you from getting in the elevator.”

She wasn’t wrong. The guilt crashed over him in waves. He’d made every choice that led to this room. The only choice he could still make—the only right one anyway—was to leave.

“I’m sorry,” he said again as he moved toward the door. “This isn’t… I’m not…”

“Save it,” Kate said coldly. “You came up here. You… you did all this to me. And now you’re going to leave and pretend you’re some kind of hero for not fucking me?” Her voice rose. “You’re a coward, Declan. And a tease. Just some fucking creep who takes advantage of—”

But Declan was already out the door, her words cutting off as it swung shut behind him. He stood in the hallway for a moment, shaking, his shirt still misbuttoned, his hair disheveled. What had he almost done? What had he done?

He needed to get out of this hotel. He felt as if he were running from a fire. The elevator seemed to take forever to arrive. When it did, Declan stepped inside and sagged against the wall as the doors closed. His reflection in the polished brass showed a flushed version of himself, the shame written on his face.

As the elevator descended, he pulled out his phone with trembling hands. The guilt was overwhelming now, crushing. He had to apologize for ignoring Grace’s calls even if he couldn’t be honest about why he was so sorry.

The screen showed a series of missed call notifications, along with a pair of unread text messages from Grace.

Declan pressed play on the first voicemail.

“Hi, honey!” The thrill of surprise sounded in Grace’s recorded voice. “I know you’re at the party, but I had an idea. Forget dinner at home. The kids and I want to come celebrate with you! I managed to get us a room at the Grandview. They only had the penthouse left, but I figured since this was such a big win, why not splurge a little? Call it might half-assed way of apologizing for this morning.”

Declan’s eyes began to water. Grace. God. She’d wanted to surprise him, and he’d been—

The dread came over him all at once. She was in the hotel. What if she’d seen him go upstairs? What if she’d asked around for him at the party, and someone had told her they saw him get on the elevator? He straightened up in alarm. What if she saw him like this, disheveled, retreating?

“Not sure if they’re serving dinner or just passing plates at your party,” the message continued, “but maybe you can come up and have a little room service with us. We’re bringing ice cream for the kids and bubbly for us. I know it means they’ll be up past their bedtime, but Sarah wants to see Daddy in his cape. Don’t worry, I stashed it in the overnight bag and you can just pretend you wore it. Michael has questions about capital-J Justice that only you can answer. We’re going to grab a quick snack to tide us over, but we should be there by seven! See you soon. Love you! And I’m sorry, okay? You’re right. I shouldn’t have said that.”

Declan checked the timestamp. The message had come in at 6:07 PM. While he’d been talking to Father Santos. While he’d been ignoring her call.

His hands shook as he pulled up the second voicemail. The elevator had reached the lobby now, the doors opening, but Declan found he couldn’t move.

“Dec, it’s me again.” Her tone was tighter now. “I’ve been trying to reach you for over an hour. We’re here at the hotel, but I can’t tell if you got my first message since you haven’t called back. Like always.” The bitterness in those last two words cut through Declan. “The snack didn’t do the job, and Sarah refuses to eat anything listed on the room service menu. The kids are hungry and getting cranky. I can’t make them wait any longer. We’re going to walk to that Italian place on Fifth, the one with plain spaghetti and shitty chicken nuggets on the kids menu. Should take us about twenty minutes to get there. We’ll eat dinner and come back. No need to rush your party.”

The message ended. Declan stared at the phone, his mind trying to process what he was hearing. A combination of guilt and relief coursed through him, because if they’d been forced to go out to dinner, at least it meant Grace couldn’t have seen him go upstairs.

The timestamp on the second message read 7:15 PM. What time had he gone up to Kate’s room?

With hands that felt disconnected from his body, Declan opened Grace’s text messages.

The first, sent at 7:08 before the second voicemail: “Should have fed the kids before we left. No way to ‘yes’ on the room service. Thinking of walking to dinner. Call me when you can.”

The second, sent at 7:18: “Why aren’t you answering? Is everything okay?”

Everything was not okay. He’d failed his wife. Had betrayed her. By now, it was almost eight-thirty, and he had no idea whether his family would still be at dinner or they’d returned to the penthouse and were waiting for him. He’d received several more calls in the interim, one from Grace with no accompanying voicemail, and the rest from unknown numbers. The silence from his wife for more than an hour—it hurt more than the frustration he’d read in her texts and voicemails.

When the phone rang again, he startled, then answered so quickly he didn’t even check who was calling.

“Grace, baby, I’m so sorry,” he said.

“I’m sorry,” the voice came. Declan didn’t recognize the voice, a man’s, and a quick glance at the screen showed another of the unknown numbers. “Is this Declan Brady?”

“Yes.”

“This is Officer Juan Martinez.”

“Officer,” he managed to say, his voice sounding strange and distant.

“Mr. Brady, we’ve been trying to reach you.” The officer’s voice carried the same register that Declan recognized from his legal career as the tone people used when delivering devastating news. “We need you to come to Presbyterian Hospital right away. There’s been a serious accident. Your wife and children—”

Dread. Anguish.

“How bad?” The question came out as a whisper.

“Sir, I really think you should come to the hospital. Come straight to Emergency. Ask for Dr. Kim when you arrive. It’s important that you come right away.”

“Tell me how bad,” Declan demanded, his voice rising. Several people in the lobby turned to look at him. “Tell me if they’re—”

“Please, Mr. Brady. Just come to the hospital.”

The line went dead.

Declan stood frozen in the middle of the Grandview’s elegant lobby, aware on some distant level that he was creating a scene, people were staring, he was still disheveled from Kate Morrison’s bed. But none of that mattered. The only thing that mattered was the time he’d spent in that room, not answering his phone. Grace had called him during that window. What if he’d answered?

“Declan?” Father Santos appeared beside him, his weathered face creased with concern. “What’s happened? You look—”

“My family,” Declan said, the words coming from somewhere far away. “There’s been an accident. I have to—I need to get to the hospital.”

“I’ll drive you,” Father Santos said immediately, placing a steady hand on Declan’s arm. “Come on. We’ll take my car.”

The period that followed existed as fragments. The priest guiding him through the lobby and out into the October evening. The cool air hitting his flushed face. Father Santos’s old Ford Escort. During the silent ride through city streets, Santos offered prayers that Declan couldn’t focus on.

In the Friday night scrum of Presbyterian Hospital’s emergency wing, Father Santos became someone else entirely. He cut through the bureaucracy with the authority written in his collar. Within minutes, they were being led down a corridor away from the Emergency Room.

Dr. Kim waited inside a cramped waiting room. She was a small Korean-American woman in her fifties, soft eyes behind wire-rimmed glasses, graying hair pulled back in a bun. Behind her stood a police officer, tall and middle-aged in a crisp blue uniform, his hat resting in his hands and a clipboard hanging at his side like an anchor.

“Mr. Brady?” Dr. Kim’s tone was polished in its gentleness.

“Where are they?” Declan demanded with a quaking voice. “Where’s my family?”

The doctor exchanged a glance with the cop. “Please, sit down.”

“I don’t want to sit down. I want to see my wife and children.”

“Mr. Brady,” the cop—Officer Martinez—said gently, “your family was attempting to cross Fifth Street around seven thirty this evening. A truck was attempting to beat the red light on Ohio, and the driver of a Tesla changed lanes too fast. We think one or both drivers may have been drunk. The impact was—” He paused, searching for words. “It was instantaneous. Your wife and children wouldn’t have suffered.”

The words slid over him like smoke. Wouldn’t have suffered. As if something like that could soften the end of everything that mattered.

“That’s not possible,” Declan said calmly, rationally. “They were coming to surprise me. Grace left a voicemail. They were bringing ice cream.”

The officer and the doctor looked at each other. Neither spoke.

“They were walking to dinner,” Declan admitted, his voice still eerily calm. “The Italian place on Fifth. They were supposed to come back.”

“Mr. Brady,” Dr. Kim said softly, taking a step toward him. “I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t.” The word came out sharp. “Don’t say it. Don’t you fucking say it.”

While he’d been declining Grace’s call, while he’d been kissing another woman, his wife and children had been making the choices that—.

No. He couldn’t face it. It couldn’t be real.

“There are arrangements to be made,” Dr. Kim was saying. “But nothing that can’t wait until—”

“I want to see them.”

“Mr. Brady, I don’t think that’s—”

“I want to see my family. Now.”

Dr. Kim and Officer Martinez exchanged another long look. Finally, the doctor nodded to the cop, who made a note on his clipboard and excused himself. Father Santos’s hand hovered above Declan’s shoulder as if he meant a show of comfort before thinking better of it.

“We can arrange that,” Dr. Kim said quietly. “But Mr. Brady, you should know… the impact was severe. I need to prepare you for—”

“Now,” Declan repeated.

Father Santos stayed behind.

A series of sterile corridors and hushed voices and forms to sign with hands that no longer felt connected to his body ushered Declan to an elevator that descended into the hospital’s lower levels. In the room the doors opened to, fluorescent lights hummed, and the smell of disinfectant couldn’t quite mask something more fundamental and wrong.

The viewing room was smaller than he’d expected, with soft lighting and a pair of rigid looking chairs. Dr. Kim led him to three gurneys arranged side by side, each covered with a white sheet that revealed only the vague outlines of what lay beneath.

“Mr. Brady,” she said softly, “I need you to understand what you’re asking to see. The damage is... You should prepare yourself—”

“Just show me.”

She pulled back the first sheet.

There was no preparing for this.

Grace’s lovely face was destroyed, her skull caved in on one side, dark blood matting her beautiful copper hair into clumps of crimson. Her left arm was bent at an impossible angle. Her torso… This couldn’t be his Grace, who sang off-key in the shower and read novels in bed and held to her convictions and made him coffee every morning with precisely the right amount of cream.

“It’s not her,” he heard himself say.

“Mr. Brady—”

Even as he denied it, something in his mind performed a desperate trick of mercy. The damage began to fade, the blood disappearing, the broken bones realigning themselves. To Declan, suddenly Grace looked peaceful, as if she were simply sleeping. Her face was whole again, unmarked, the way he needed to see her.

“She’s beautiful,” he whispered.

Something seemed to seize Dr. Kim. She stiffened, and her movements became more hesitant. But she did not stop.

The second sheet revealed Michael, and again that terrible moment of recognition and denial. His son’s six-year-old frame was utterly destroyed. But as Declan stared, his mind performed its impossible magic again. The wounds closed, the broken bones healed, and Michael appeared to be simply napping, his face serene and undamaged.

Sarah was under the third sheet. The smallest, the most vulnerable, she had borne the worst of it. Her tiny body—

But Declan’s brain refused even to register the truth before it created the illusion. Sarah sleeping peacefully, her small hands curled beside her face just like they were every time he checked on her at night.

“They look so peaceful,” he said, steady and calm.

He spent as long with them as Dr. Kim’s clear concern would allow, sitting in that awful room and speaking his goodbyes to the undamaged versions his mind had created. He told them about the trial, Father Santos, how proud he was of the family they’d built together. He told Grace he accepted her apology, and promised he didn’t resent her for leaving the Church, promised Michael they would finish building that birdhouse. And with a smile on his face and a tear spilling over his cheek, he told Sarah he’d forgotten to wear the construction paper cape today, but he would never forget again.

They’d called him. Grace had called while they were walking to dinner, and he’d declined it. Maybe he’d been on his fourth drink. Or maybe he’d been in Kate Morrison’s room, kissing her, undressing her, and his wife had been trying to reach him and he’d pressed that red button and chosen another woman.

If he’d answered, he could have told Grace to wait for him. They’d have gone out together. They’d have been delayed enough that the accident would never have happened.

At once, the illusions he’d been holding onto dissolved to reveal the truth: His family was gone, erased from existence while he’d been moments away from fucking another woman. A sound emerged from his throat, not quite a scream, not quite a moan. It was primal and broken. His legs gave out, and now he found himself on his knees beside the gurneys.

Father Santos was there somehow, arms around him, pulling him upright, murmuring prayers or comfort or something Declan couldn’t process through the roaring in his ears. Dr. Kim stood at a careful distance, watching them leave.

“I’ll drive you home,” Father Santos said when they finally reached the elevator.

Declan Brady was weak, hollowed out to where nothing remained inside him.

“Home to what?”

The priest had no answer for that.