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Claire was boarding a train back to Washington, D.C., less than three hours later, her military leave approved with questions that were answered only partially, because some truths didn’t need to be spoken aloud to be understood. She had spent most of her adult life working in intelligence analysis, learning how patterns reveal themselves when people stop pretending, how silence can be louder than confession, and how control thrives best when no one is watching closely enough.
Her identical twin, Mara Donovan, had always been the softer one, not weaker, just more inclined to believe that love could be repaired if you stayed still long enough, that endurance was the same thing as loyalty, and that walking away meant failure rather than survival. When Claire walked into the medical recovery wing where Mara was temporarily staying, the resemblance between them was still perfect to anyone who didn’t know what to look for, but Claire noticed immediately what had changed: the way Mara’s gaze flicked toward doors, the careful angle she held her body at, the unconscious habit of apologizing before speaking.
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