Before Daniel could answer, a nurse entered with two hospital security officers.
“We’re moving you now.”
The protected wing was not advertised on any directory. It sat behind two locked doors, past an elevator that required a badge and a code. The room looked almost identical to the first, but its windows did not open, and there was a camera outside the door.
Ethan pushed the bassinet himself.
I watched him through the haze of pain medication and exhaustion. His shoulders were rounded, his face gray. Every few steps, he checked the twins as if afraid they might vanish between one breath and the next.
At the new room, Daniel remained near the door while nurses settled us in. One took my vitals. Another checked my incision. A third scanned Ava and Noah’s bracelets twice, then asked me to verify every number.
I did.
I would have memorized their blood types, footprints, and tiny sleeping sounds if it meant no one could ever again claim them.
When the nurses left, Daniel handed me my phone.
“You have missed calls,” he said.
There were twenty-seven.
Unknown numbers. Courthouse numbers. My clerk. The hospital administrator. And one from my father.
That stopped me.
My father had not called me in eight months.
Not since he told me marrying into the Whitfield family was like stepping into a room full of mirrors and refusing to notice none of the reflections moved correctly.
I had been offended then.
I was less offended now.
I called him back.
He answered before the first ring finished.
“Caroline.”
His voice was low, steady, dangerous in the old way. Before retirement, Arthur Mercer had spent thirty-four years as a prosecutor. He could make a confession sound like the only warm place left in the world.
“Dad.”
“Are the babies with you?”
“Yes.”
“Both of them?”
“Yes.”
He exhaled.
Only then did I realize he had been afraid to breathe.
“I’m coming.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I wasn’t asking.”
I closed my eyes.