Ethan Carter sat alone at the corner table of Marello’s Italian Bistro in downtown San Diego, California, checking his phone for the eighth time.
7:03 p.m.
Thirty-three minutes late.
The chair across from him remained empty—perfectly set, painfully untouched, like a quiet joke at his expense. The waiter had already offered water twice, bread three times, and an apologetic smile that said I’m sorry without words.
Ethan swallowed hard.
Five years after burying his wife, maybe this was all life still knew how to give him—silence and empty tables. Maybe his sister-in-law had been wrong to push him to “get back out there.” Maybe he’d been foolish to believe there was still room for him in that world.
He rested his forehead in his hand and breathed in slowly, thinking of Lucas, his five-year-old son, asleep at Marianne’s place. He pictured the smell of baby powder on the pillow, the small weight of that boy clinging to him after nightmares. Ethan was a physical therapist—he helped others rebuild their bodies. But what had broken inside him wasn’t muscle or bone.
It was right in the center of his chest, where absence still pulsed.
He forced himself to look around.
Families. Couples. Laughter. Raised glasses.
Then the restaurant door burst open so violently that several heads turned at once.
Two little girls ran inside.
They were twins. About seven years old. Matching floral dresses, hair completely disheveled, as if they’d run through a storm. Their faces were soaked with tears—but what made Ethan’s stomach drop wasn’t the crying.
It was the dirt caked onto their knees.
The scrapes along their arms.
And the red stain smeared across one girl’s neck.
The twins scanned the restaurant like shipwreck survivors searching for a single piece of driftwood. Their eyes jumped from table to table—desperate—until they locked onto Ethan.
And they ran straight toward him.
“Are you… are you Ethan?” one of them gasped, barely able to breathe.
Ethan shot to his feet. His chair screeched against the floor.
“Yes—yes, that’s me. What happened? Are you okay? Where’s your mom?”
The other twin grabbed his arm with both hands. Her small fingers dug into his skin with a strength no child should have.
“Our mom… she was supposed to meet you here,” she sobbed. “But some men came to our house… they kicked the door in… they hurt her…”
The first twin interrupted, words tumbling over each other.
“She screamed at us to run. To find you. We ran the whole way. We don’t know if she’s still breathing.”
The restaurant went silent.
Plates stopped clinking. Conversations vanished. It was as if someone had turned down the volume on the entire world.
Ethan dropped to their level, his heart slamming against his ribs.
“Slow down. Breathe. What’s your mom’s name?”
“Natalie Morgan,” whispered the girl with blood on her collar.
The name cut straight through him.
Natalie.
The woman he was supposed to meet tonight.
The one Marianne had described as strong, hardworking, an amazing mom.
The woman who was supposed to walk through that door—and instead was bleeding on her living room floor.
“Where do you live?” Ethan asked, already pulling out his phone, already dialing 911, his hands steady not from calm, but urgency.