I showed up at my ex-wife’s house on Christmas Eve convinced another man had taken my place. Minutes later, she placed a six-day-old baby in my arms and calmly told me he was my son. The truth that followed shattered everything I believed—not only about our marriage, but about the mother I had trusted my entire life.
I showed up at my ex-wife’s house on Christmas Eve convinced another man had taken my place. Minutes later, she placed a six-day-old baby in my arms and calmly told me he was my son. The truth that followed shattered everything I believed—not only about our marriage, but about the mother I had trusted my entire life.
PART 2
For several seconds, I forgot how to breathe.
The baby weighed almost nothing in my arms, yet holding him felt like standing beneath the full weight of a life I had never known existed.
His face was half-hidden beneath the edge of the blue blanket. A soft knitted cap covered his head, and one tiny fist rested against his cheek. He made a faint sound—not quite a cry, more like a sigh—and turned toward the warmth of my chest.
My chest.
The thought nearly brought me to my knees.
“This is your son,” Maren had said.
The words continued to echo through me, impossible and undeniable.
I looked from the child to her.
“What did you say?”
Maren’s face tightened.
“You heard me.”
“No.” My voice came out thin and unsteady. “I don’t think I did.”
“He’s your son, Everett.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Somewhere behind her, a clock ticked steadily above the fireplace. Christmas music played softly from a speaker on the bookshelf. The tree lights blinked gold and white, reflecting against the windows.
Everything around me looked warm, peaceful, almost ordinary.
Nothing inside me was ordinary anymore.
“How?” I asked.
Maren stared at me as if she could not decide whether to laugh or cry.
“How do you think?”
“That isn’t what I meant.”
“I know what you meant.”
She folded her arms, but the movement looked more like an attempt to hold herself together than an act of defiance.
I looked down again.
The baby’s eyelids fluttered. He had a small crease in his chin.
My father had possessed the same crease. So did I.
A cold rush moved through me.
“When?” I whispered.
“I found out three weeks after you filed for divorce.”
The accusation struck with surgical precision.
Three weeks.
I tried to count backward, but my thoughts refused to organize themselves.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
Maren closed her eyes briefly.
“I tried.”
Those two words frightened me more than anything else she could have said.
I lifted my gaze.
“What does that mean?”
“It means exactly what it sounds like.”
The baby shifted in my arms. Instinctively, I adjusted my hold, though I had no idea what I was doing. Maren stepped forward at once, her hands hovering near the blanket.
“Support his head.”
“I am.”
“You weren’t.”
“I’ve never held a newborn before.”
“I know.”
The softness in her voice lasted only a moment, but I heard it.
May you like
She reached under my wrist and gently repositioned my arm. Her fingers brushed mine.
The contact opened something painful between us.
For months, I had replayed our final arguments and told myself she had stopped loving me. I had convinced myself our marriage had collapsed because she had become impossible to please.
Standing there with our child between us, I understood how convenient that version had been.
It allowed me to remain the injured party.
It allowed me not to examine what I had done.
Or what I had failed to do.
“What’s his name?” I asked.
Maren hesitated.
“Elias.”
I looked down at him.
“Elias.”
The name felt unfamiliar on my tongue and strangely right.
“Elias James.”
“James,” I repeated.
“After my father.”
I nodded.
Her father had died when she was in college. I had only seen photographs of him, but Maren had spoken often of his patience, his dry humor, and the way he never ended a phone call without saying he loved her.
I had once told her I hoped to become that kind of father.
The memory made my throat tighten.
“Does he have my last name?”
Maren’s expression changed.
“No.”
The answer should not have hurt. I had no right to be hurt.
Still, it did.
“Why not?”
“Because I didn’t know if you would ever meet him.”
My eyes snapped to hers.
“I would have come.”
“You didn’t.”
“I didn’t know.”
“I told you I tried.”
“Then explain it.”
She studied me with exhaustion in her face.
Behind the anger, I saw fear.
Not fear of me.
Fear of what she was about to say.
“You should sit down,” she said.
“I don’t want to sit down.”
“You’re holding a six-day-old baby, Everett. Sit down.”
I obeyed.
That alone would have astonished anyone who knew me.
I moved toward the sofa and lowered myself carefully onto the cushions. Maren placed a pillow under my elbow, then checked Elias’s blanket before sitting in the chair opposite me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
The baby’s breathing was soft and quick.
I watched his chest rise beneath the blanket and felt something inside me break open.
He had existed for six days.
Six days of first breaths, first sounds, first restless nights.
I had missed all of them.
Not because I had been trapped across the world or fighting for my life.
I had missed them because I had been sitting alone in a penthouse ten miles away, drinking expensive whiskey and telling myself Maren was probably happier without me.
“Tell me everything,” I said.
She looked at Elias.
“When I found out I was pregnant, I was terrified. We had already signed the initial separation papers. You had moved out. Every conversation between us turned into an argument.”
“I remember.”
“I wasn’t sure how you would react.”
“You thought I wouldn’t want him?”
“I thought you would want him.” She paused. “I wasn’t sure you would want me.”
The honesty of it cut deeper than blame.
“Maren—”
“Let me finish.”
I nodded.
“I made an appointment with my doctor. I confirmed the pregnancy. Then I spent two days trying to decide how to tell you. I called your office.”
I frowned.
“My office?”
“Your assistant said you were in meetings.”
“That sounds possible.”
“I left a message.”
“I never got one.”
“I called again the next morning. Then again that afternoon.”
My unease deepened.
“Who did you speak to?”
“Different people. Your assistant once. Reception twice. Someone from your executive office.”
“Did you call my cell?”
“Eleven times.”
My mouth went dry.
“I don’t remember that.”
“I know.”
“What do you mean, you know?”
“I watched the calls disappear.”
I stared at her.
“Disappear from where?”
“From your phone.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It didn’t make sense to me either.”
She stood and crossed to a small cabinet near the dining room. From the top drawer, she removed a worn brown envelope.
She brought it back and placed it on the coffee table.
Inside were printed pages.
Phone records.
Screenshots.
Copies of emails.
I looked through them slowly.
Her number appeared over and over again on itemized phone statements. Calls lasting seconds. Calls marked unanswered. Voicemails recorded.
My own phone had shown none of them.
There were emails addressed to both my personal account and my corporate address.
The subject lines made my hands shake.
Please call me. It’s important.
Everett, I’m pregnant.
We need to talk about the baby.
I don’t want you to hear this from anyone else.
I looked up.
“I never saw these.”
“I believe you.”
That surprised me.
“You do?”
“I didn’t at first.”
She sat again, clasping her hands tightly.
“At first, I thought you were ignoring me. I thought you had decided that answering would complicate the divorce. Your silence felt deliberate.”
“It wasn’t.”
“I know that now.”
“How?”
“Because I came to your building.”
A memory surfaced faintly.
A Tuesday afternoon in late July. A board meeting. My mother entering the conference room during a break and telling me Maren had stopped by to return a few things.
I had asked if Maren was all right.
My mother had said she looked perfectly fine.
“What happened when you came?” I asked.
Maren’s gaze did not leave mine.
“Your mother met me in the lobby.”
The room seemed to grow colder.
“My mother?”
“She said you refused to see me.”
I shook my head immediately.
“That’s not true.”
“She said you knew about the pregnancy.”
“No.”
“She said you had already spoken to your attorney.”
“I hadn’t.”
“She told me you wanted a clean break.”
My fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.
Elias stirred, and I forced myself to loosen my grip.
“What exactly did she say?”
Maren looked toward the tree, as if the words had remained there all these months, waiting in the shadows.
“She said you didn’t believe the baby was yours.”
For one stunned second, I heard nothing at all.
Then the blood began to pound in my ears.
“I would never say that.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t understand. I would never even think that.”
“I know now.”
“Why would she tell you that?”
Maren’s eyes filled, but her voice remained controlled.
“She said you believed I had become pregnant to stop the divorce.”
I stood too quickly.
Elias made a startled sound.
Maren rose at once.
“Sit down.”
“I need to call her.”
“No.”
“She lied to you.”
“Everett, sit down.”
“She kept me from my child.”
“You are holding him for the first time. This is not the moment to start a war with your mother.”
I looked down.
Elias’s mouth trembled. His face was beginning to redden.
Panic replaced anger.
“What’s wrong?”
“He’s upset because you moved too fast.”
“I barely moved.”
“He’s six days old. Everything is too fast.”
His cry began softly, then grew sharper.
I froze.
Maren came close and placed one hand against his back.
“Rock him.”
“How?”
“Gently.”
I moved my arms with painful awkwardness.
“Not like you’re negotiating a merger.”
“I don’t negotiate mergers with my arms.”
Despite everything, her mouth almost curved.
“Slowly,” she said. “Like this.”
She guided me.
Together, we moved Elias in a careful rhythm.
His cry weakened.
Then stopped.
For the first time since I entered the house, Maren and I stood close enough to feel each other breathe.
“You’re good with him,” I said.
“I’ve had six days of practice.”
“Only six?”
“I was in the hospital for three.”
“You were alone?”
“My sister came from Richmond. She stayed until yesterday.”
“And no one called me?”
“I asked them not to.”
The words hurt, but I understood.
“Why did you believe me now?” I asked. “You said you know I never received the messages.”
Maren stepped back.
“Because someone contacted me.”
“Who?”
“She didn’t give me her name.”
I frowned.
“She?”
“About two weeks before Elias was born, I received a package.”
“What kind of package?”
“No return address. Inside were copies of internal email logs from your company. Security records. Call-routing reports. Someone had documented every attempt I made to contact you.”
I stared at her.
“That information is confidential.”
“I assumed so.”
“Whoever sent it had access to our internal systems.”
“Yes.”
“What did the records show?”
“That my emails were intercepted before they reached your inbox. My calls were rerouted. My voicemail messages were deleted.”
A chill moved down my spine.
“That would require administrative access.”
“I don’t know what it requires.”
“It requires someone high enough in the company to bypass normal controls.”
“Someone like your mother?”
I did not answer.
My mother, Lenora Ashford, had served as chairwoman of Ashford Technologies since my father’s death.
I was CEO, but she retained authority over executive security, legal strategy, and the family trust that controlled our voting shares.
For years, I had described her influence as guidance.
Others had called it control.
I had defended her every time.
“She wouldn’t do this,” I said, though the words sounded weak even to me.
Maren’s expression hardened.
“She did it in front of me.”
“She may have believed she was protecting me.”
“From your own child?”
“She didn’t know for certain—”
“Don’t.”
The single word stopped me.
“Do not defend her before you understand what she did.”
“I’m trying to understand.”
“No. You’re trying to find a version that hurts less.”
I looked away.
She was right.
Again.
My entire life, I had made my mother’s behavior easier to accept by renaming it.
Interference became concern.
Manipulation became strategy.
Cruelty became strength.
She had raised me after my father died, educated me, prepared me to inherit the company, and taught me never to show uncertainty.
I had trusted her more completely than I had trusted anyone.
Including my wife.
That realization sat inside me like a stone.
“What else was in the package?” I asked.
“A note.”
“Where is it?”
Maren returned to the envelope and removed a folded sheet.
The message had been typed.
He does not know. He has never known. Ask him about the deleted voicemails. Ask him why his private accounts were monitored. Do not trust anyone who claims this was done for his protection.
There was no signature.
I read it twice.
Then a third time.
“My private accounts,” I said.
Maren nodded.
“I didn’t know what that meant.”
Neither did I.
Or perhaps I did not want to.
After my father’s death, my mother had insisted that our family needed stronger digital security. She had arranged protected devices, private servers, and a personal cybersecurity team.
I had never questioned who monitored those systems.
I looked at Maren.
“Did you try to contact me after receiving this?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because I was thirty-eight weeks pregnant. Because I had spent months believing you had rejected your own child. Because one anonymous package didn’t erase everything that happened between us.”
“I understand.”
“No, you don’t.”
“I’m trying to.”
“You always say that after the damage is done.”
The words landed without anger.
That made them worse.
I lowered my eyes to Elias.
His face had relaxed again. He slept as though the world beyond the blanket did not exist.
“I’m sorry,” I said.
Maren turned away.
“I’m not asking you to forgive me tonight,” I continued. “I’m not asking you to trust me. But I am sorry.”
“For what?”
The question was quiet.
I considered giving her the easy answer.
For missing the calls.
For believing my mother.
For arriving at her door with accusations.
But those were only pieces.
“For making you feel alone while we were married,” I said. “For acting as though providing for us was the same as being present. For letting my mother have a voice in our marriage that should have belonged only to us. For filing for divorce when what I really wanted was for you to stop asking me to become someone I was afraid I couldn’t be.”
Maren looked back at me.
Her face had gone still.
“I never asked you to become someone else.”
“You asked me to come home.”
“Yes.”
“I didn’t know how.”
“That was the problem, Everett. Home was never a place to you. It was the space between meetings.”
I closed my eyes.
There was no defense.
No clever explanation.
No way to turn her words into a misunderstanding.
She had begged me to have dinner with her without checking my phone.
She had asked me to take one weekend away without rescheduling it.
She had once waited alone at a restaurant on our anniversary for ninety minutes while I sat in a car outside a conference center, finishing a call I had convinced myself could not wait.
By the time I arrived, she had gone home.
I sent flowers the next morning.
They had cost more than the restaurant’s monthly rent.
She had left them in the box.
At the time, I called her ungrateful.
Now I saw the flowers for what they had been.
A receipt.
Proof that I had spent money where love required effort.
Elias moved again, opening his mouth in a small yawn.
My heart lurched.
“Can I hold him a little longer?”
Maren’s expression softened despite herself.
“Yes.”
I sat back down.
She disappeared into the kitchen and returned with a bottle.
“He’ll need to eat soon.”
“Can I feed him?”
She hesitated.
The pause felt like a verdict.
Then she nodded.
“All right.”
She showed me how to hold the bottle, how to angle it, how to watch his breathing.
I listened to every word as though my life depended on it.
Elias opened his eyes.
They were dark blue, unfocused and searching.
He looked directly at me, or seemed to.
I had spent my adult life being observed by investors, employees, competitors, journalists, and boards of directors.
No gaze had ever made me feel so exposed.
“I don’t know what to say to him,” I admitted.
“You don’t have to say anything.”
“I should.”
Maren sat beside me, leaving several inches between us.
“Tell him who you are.”
I let out a breath that nearly became a laugh.
“I’m not sure I know.”
“Then start with your name.”
I looked at my son.
“I’m Everett,” I said softly. “I’m your father.”
The word caught in my throat.
Father.
I tried again.
“I’m your father, and I’m late.”
Maren’s eyes lowered.
“But I’m here now.”
Elias continued drinking, unimpressed by promises.
That seemed fair.
“I don’t know what happens next,” I told him. “I don’t know what your mother will allow. She is much smarter than I am, so whatever she decides will probably be correct.”
Maren gave me a look.
“I’m trying to build goodwill.”
“You’re failing.”
“I expected that.”
A silence followed, but it no longer felt sharp.
I watched Elias finish the bottle.
Maren helped me lift him to my shoulder.
“Pat his back.”
“I know how to do that.”
“You just learned twelve seconds ago.”
“Still counts.”
After several gentle pats, Elias released a tiny burp.
I stared at him in astonishment.
Maren laughed.
It was the first time I had heard her laugh in almost a year.
The sound filled the room more completely than the music, the lights, or the fire.
For one foolish second, hope rose in me.
Not the hope that everything could return to the way it had been.
I no longer wanted that.
The way it had been had led us here.
But perhaps something new could be built.
Slowly.
Honestly.
Without my mother standing between us.
The thought brought the unanswered questions rushing back.
“Did my mother know Elias had been born?”
“I don’t know.”
“Did you tell anyone connected to the company?”
“No.”
“Your medical records?”
“Private.”
“She has resources.”
“I know.”
I looked toward the window.
The street outside was quiet beneath a thin dusting of snow.
“Does she know I’m here?”
“I didn’t tell her.”
“I didn’t tell anyone.”
Maren’s attention sharpened.
“Why did you come tonight?”
I considered lying.
I could have said I wanted to apologize.
That was partly true.
I could have said I missed her.
That was entirely true.
But neither explained the fury with which I had struck her door.
“I saw a man leave earlier,” I admitted.
Her eyebrows rose.
“You were watching my house?”
“I prefer to call it hesitating from a respectful distance.”
“You were parked across the street.”
“For twenty minutes.”
“Forty-three.”
I blinked.
“You saw me?”
“The silver car with the diplomatic-level tinted windows was difficult to miss.”
“I thought he was—”
“My brother-in-law.”
I rubbed a hand over my face.
“Of course he was.”
“He brought a crib.”
“I saw the box.”
“You assumed it was another man moving in.”
“Yes.”
“That is both arrogant and ridiculous.”
“I understand that now.”
“You understood it the moment I handed you a baby.”
“That was a highly clarifying moment.”
Her mouth twitched again.
Then her face became serious.
“You can’t do that.”
“Do what?”
“Come here whenever jealousy takes over. We are divorced.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to demand answers about my private life.”
“I know.”
“And meeting Elias doesn’t give you permission to take control of everything.”
“I know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because I do.”
“No. You agree in the moment. Then you act as though your urgency should become everyone else’s emergency.”
The observation struck with uncomfortable accuracy.
“What do you need from me?” I asked.
She looked surprised.
“I mean tonight,” I added. “Not forever. Not next week. What do you need from me right now?”
Maren considered the question.
“I need you not to call your mother from this house.”
“All right.”
“I need you not to involve your attorneys.”
“I won’t.”
“I need you not to send staff, security, doctors, gifts, or anything else here without asking.”
“That is a very specific list.”
“Because I know you.”
I nodded.
“Agreed.”
“And I need you to understand that you are not taking Elias anywhere.”
My arms tightened protectively before I could stop myself.
“I wasn’t planning to.”
“You were thinking about it.”
“I was thinking about how little protection this house has.”
“This house has locks.”
“It has windows facing the street.”
“Most houses do.”
“You need security.”
“I need sleep.”
“I could arrange a night nurse.”
“No.”
“A temporary assistant?”
“No.”
“A driver?”
“Everett.”
“Right. No staff.”
She studied me.
“Can you follow those boundaries?”
“Yes.”
“Even if you disagree?”
“Yes.”
“Even if your mother tells you I’m making a mistake?”
At that, I met her eyes.
“My mother will not be making decisions about you or Elias.”
Maren held my gaze.
Something in the room shifted.
Not trust.
Not yet.
But perhaps the first condition under which trust might someday return.
Elias had fallen asleep against my shoulder.
His cheek rested against my shirt.
I became aware that I was still wearing my overcoat.
I had stormed inside like a man expecting confrontation and had never removed it.
Maren noticed too.
“You can put your coat on the chair.”
“I might wake him.”
“You’ll have to move eventually.”
“I’m considering living in this position.”
“That seems impractical for a CEO.”
“I can conduct meetings remotely.”
“He’ll need changing soon.”
“I withdraw my proposal.”
She shook her head, but there was warmth in it.
I removed my coat as carefully as possible.
Then I noticed a small suitcase near the staircase.
“Are you going somewhere?”
“No.”
“Is someone staying?”
“My sister was. I haven’t put it away.”
I nodded.
The instinct to question her had returned so quickly that I hated myself for it.
“I’m sorry.”
“For asking?”
“For the tone.”
She looked toward the suitcase.
“Old habits don’t disappear because something important happens.”
“I know.”
“Do you?”
“I want to.”
That answer seemed to satisfy her more than the others.
The clock above the fireplace chimed nine.
Maren rose.
“You should go soon.”
The words created an immediate emptiness in me.
“I just met him.”
“And he will still be here tomorrow.”
“Can I come back?”
She did not answer at once.
“Please,” I said. “At any time you choose. For as long as you choose. I won’t bring anyone. I won’t call ahead more than once. I won’t—”
“Ten in the morning.”
Relief nearly made me dizzy.
“Ten.”
“For an hour.”
“Of course.”
“And Everett?”
“Yes?”
“You are not staying tonight.”
“I wasn’t going to ask.”
“You were.”
“I was considering asking.”
“No.”
“Understood.”
She reached for Elias.
Every part of me resisted giving him back.
The feeling was so sudden and primal that it frightened me.
He had been in my arms less than an hour, and already the thought of leaving him felt unnatural.
Still, I stood and transferred him carefully to Maren.
She held him with effortless familiarity.
Mother and child.
A complete picture from which I had been absent.
“I want to be on the birth certificate,” I said.
Her expression guarded itself.
“I know.”
“And I want to help.”
“I know.”
“Financially, I mean, but not only financially.”
“I know what you mean.”
“I want to learn.”
Maren looked down at Elias.
“You’ll have to.”
“I will.”
“You can’t treat fatherhood like a division you acquire.”
“I won’t.”
“You won’t be able to solve every problem.”
“I know.”
“You’ll miss things.”
“I’ve already missed too much.”
The words silenced us both.
After a moment, she walked me to the door.
My hand rested on the knob.
“Maren.”
She waited.
“Why did you open the door?”
“What?”
“When I arrived. You could have ignored me.”
“I thought you might have come to apologize.”
“I should have.”
“Yes.”
“And when you went down the hallway—why did you decide to bring him out?”
Her eyes moved toward the living room.
“Because when I looked at you, I realized you truly didn’t know.”
“How?”
“You were angry.”
“That convinced you?”
“No. You were hurt.”
She gave a tired, sad smile.
“If you had known about Elias and chosen to abandon him, you wouldn’t have looked jealous of another man. You would have looked ashamed.”
I had no answer.
She opened the door.
Cold air entered the hallway.
“Ten o’clock,” she reminded me.
“I’ll be here.”
I stepped outside.
“Everett.”
I turned.
For the first time that evening, uncertainty appeared in her face.
“There’s something else in the envelope.”
The cold seemed to deepen around me.
“What?”
“I didn’t show you because I wasn’t sure it was real.”
She glanced down at Elias, then back at me.
“What is it?”
“A copy of a medical report.”
My stomach tightened.
“Whose?”
“Yours.”
“That’s impossible.”
“It has your full name, date of birth, and the name of the hospital where you were born.”
I stepped back inside and closed the door.
“What kind of medical report?”
“A genetic screening.”
“I’ve never had genetic screening.”
“It was dated when you were three days old.”
I stared at her.
“That makes no sense.”
“I know.”
“Where is it?”
She crossed to the envelope and removed one final document.
The paper was a copy of a copy, the text slightly faded. A hospital logo appeared at the top. Beneath it was my mother’s maiden name, my date of birth, and a series of typed laboratory findings.
I scanned the page without understanding most of the terminology.
Then I reached the handwritten note at the bottom.
Results inconsistent with stated paternal relationship. Recommend confirmatory testing.
I read it again.
“What does that mean?” Maren asked.
I could not speak.
My father, Richard Ashford, had raised me until his death when I was sixteen.
He had taught me to ride a bicycle, taken me to my first baseball game, and placed me on his shoulders during the company’s annual summer picnic.
Every photograph of my childhood featured him nearby.
Every story about the future began with the assumption that I would someday carry on his legacy.
Ashford Technologies.
The Ashford Foundation.
The Ashford family trust.
My entire identity rested on his name.
“This could be forged,” I said.
“Yes.”
“It must be.”
“Maybe.”
“My mother would have told me.”
Maren said nothing.
That silence held everything she no longer believed.
I looked again at the page.
At the bottom, barely visible beneath the handwritten note, was the name of the physician who had requested the test.
Dr. Samuel Vale.
The name was familiar.
I searched my memory.
Then I remembered.
Samuel Vale had been my father’s closest friend.
He had attended every major family event when I was young. After my father died, he disappeared from our lives so completely that I had once asked my mother whether they had argued.
She told me Dr. Vale had moved overseas.
“Do you know him?” Maren asked.
“I did.”
“Is he still alive?”
“I don’t know.”
I reached for my phone.
Then I stopped.
Calling my mother was exactly what she had asked me not to do.
Instead, I photographed the report.
“Everett.”
“I’m not sending it to anyone.”
“Then why take a picture?”
“Because I’m going to find out whether it’s real.”
She watched me carefully.
“And if it is?”
I looked down at my own name on the page.
The name I had inherited.
The name I had built an empire around.
“I don’t know.”
Maren folded the document and returned it to the envelope.
The movement exposed something I had not noticed before.
A line of handwriting on the back.
Not medical notation.
A message.
Maren frowned.
“That wasn’t there before.”
“It must have been.”
“No. I checked every page.”
She turned the report toward the light.
The ink was faint, as if it had been written in pencil and partially erased.
Together, we read the sentence.
Lenora was not trying to protect Everett from Maren. She was trying to keep Maren from discovering who Everett really is.
Neither of us moved.
A car passed outside, its headlights sliding across the walls before disappearing into the snowy night.
Maren looked at me.
“Who sent this?”
“I don’t know.”
The baby stirred in her arms.
Then my phone vibrated.
A new message appeared from an unknown number.
There were no words.
Only a photograph.
It showed my mother standing outside Maren’s townhouse earlier that evening, watching the front door from across the street.
Beneath the image was a timestamp.
8:17 p.m.
Three minutes after I had gone inside.
A second message arrived.
Do not confront her yet. Ask Maren what Lenora took from the hospital.
I slowly raised my eyes.
Maren had gone pale.
“What?” I asked.
She clutched Elias closer.
“What did my mother take?”
For several seconds, she could not answer.
Then she looked down at our son and whispered, “His blood sample.”
END OF PART 2 – LIKE, SHARE AND COMMENT “THE ENTIRE STORY” IF YOU WANT TO READ THE FULL STORY.
