The rain-soaked highway.
Headlights appearing too fast in the opposite lane.
Metal screaming.
Glass exploding.
Pain.
Then white hospital walls and a doctor’s gentle voice telling me fatherhood was almost impossible.
Claire’s next line made my blood turn to ice.
Alex, your accident was not an accident.
I stopped breathing.
Your father’s former driver found me six months ago. His name was Daniel Mercer. He had been paid for years to stay silent. Before he died, he sent me a drive and told me to run again. On it were recordings. Payments. Medical files. Your hospital records.
There was a procedure done while you were unconscious.
I gripped the edge of the desk so hard my fingers ached.
No.
No.
No.
Your infertility was not caused by the crash.
It was arranged.
The office swayed.
For seven years, I had mourned a future I believed fate had taken from me.
But fate had not taken it.
Someone had.
Someone with my blood.
Someone with my name.
Someone who had looked me in the eye across mahogany dinner tables and spoken of loyalty while ordering my life like property.
I folded the letter against my chest.
“Daddy?”
The word cut through the room.
Noah stood a few feet away, his small face uncertain.
I forced myself to kneel.
He touched my sleeve. “Are you sad?”
I tried to answer and failed.
Lucas came over too. “Mama said sometimes grown-ups cry when they’re happy.”
“I’m not sad because of you,” I said, my voice breaking. “Never because of you.”
Noah studied me. “Then because of Mama?”
I froze.
“Where is your mother?”
The twins exchanged a look.
It was the first time I saw fear in them.
Lucas reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small plastic dinosaur, squeezing it hard.
“She told us to go to the train station,” he said.
Noah continued, “Then to find the tall building with your name.”