Not discreetly.
Not quietly.
Right down the center aisle—past the candles, the flowers, the grieving faces—and toward the polished casket holding the woman he had spent years betraying.
He thought it was over.
In his mind, Lena Carter had died the same way she had lived—quiet, overlooked, and easy to control. He was already thinking ahead: the insurance money, the house, the accounts… and the fresh start he planned to build with the woman beside him.
To everyone else, Lena had seemed… ordinary.
A gentle elementary school teacher.
A woman who loved crafts.
Someone who sold handmade items online “to help out.”
That was the version Ethan encouraged.
Small. Harmless. Dependent.
It made it easier to dismiss her.
To talk over her.
To remind her she needed him.
He called her cheap.
Called her naive.
Told her she’d have nothing without him.
All while he was lying, cheating, drowning in gambling debt—and planning his exit.
But there was one thing no one in that church knew.
Not the priest.
Not the mourners.
Not even the man pretending to grieve in the front row.
The woman in that casket had never been weak.
Lena had been building something.
Quietly.