The Unwanted Wife and Her Secret Twins (Mia and Kyle) novel Chapter 452

Mia

The words came through the phone and landed somewhere inside my skull but didn't connect to anything.

"Ms. Porter was found unconscious in her cell during a routine check at approximately 4:17 a.m."

My eyes were open but I wasn't seeing the room anymore. I was seeing the back of my own eyelids from the inside, that strange red darkness you get when you close your eyes against bright light. The room was dim. And something was happening to my vision, tunneling inward, the edges going soft and dark.

I blinked. Once. Twice. The room came back.

The gray blanket was still half-covering me, one corner twisted around my left leg. My coffee mug was on the table where I'd left it—I could see a film forming on the surface of the water, that oily shimmer that happens when water sits too long. Kyle was still asleep at the other end of the couch,.

Everything was exactly as it had been thirty seconds ago.

"Medical personnel arrived immediately but were unable to revive her. Time of death was determined to be 4:51 a.m."

I looked at my phone screen. The call timer was still running. 7:03 a.m. now.

Two hours and twelve minutes ago.

I opened my mouth. My jaw felt strange, like the hinges had been replaced with something that didn't quite fit.

"What—"

I swallowed. It hurt. When had my throat started hurting?

"What happened?"

Papers shuffled on the other end. That specific sound of institutional documents being handled—the soft shush of paper on paper, the slight crackle of a page being turned. I could picture it so clearly. A manila folder. Forms. Observation logs. The bureaucratic machinery of death grinding forward.

The warden's voice remained steady. Practiced. The tone of someone who'd delivered versions of this news before, who'd learned exactly how much emotion to remove, how to make tragedy sound like paperwork.

"I cannot disclose details while the investigation is ongoing. However, preliminary findings indicate self-inflicted injuries consistent with—"

He stopped.

The silence on the line stretched.

"Consistent with what?" I asked.

My voice sounded normal. Perfectly normal. Like I was asking about the weather. Like my heart wasn't trying to punch its way out of my chest.

"Suicide, ma'am."

The word dropped into the space between us.

Suicide.

Taylor killed herself. Taylor is dead.

I waited for something to rise up inside me. Some feeling. Some reaction.

"Ma'am, I understand this is difficult, but—"

"No."

I sat up straighter. The blanket slid off my legs, pooling on the floor. I pressed my palm against my forehead. My skin felt strange. Too warm. Or too cold. I couldn't tell which.

"You don't understand. Taylor was—"

How did you explain it?

How did you tell a stranger that the woman who just died in his facility was someone who needed an audience? Who performed her own life like it was a stage play? Who couldn't even self-destruct without making sure everyone was watching?

Who would push me down marble stairs in front of my husband to ensure maximum damage—physical and emotional—witnessed and irreversible.

That Taylor.

"She was dramatic," I said finally.

"She needed people to know. To see. She would have left something. A letter. A message. She would have made sure I—"

I stopped.

"Ma'am?" The warden's voice had taken on a different quality. Concerned now. Like maybe I was going into shock and he was trained to recognize the signs. "Are you still there?"

"Yes. I'm here."