“You’re not a father, Julian. You’re an embezzler who got caught.”
He was still shouting as the agents led him out.
And then the pain hit.
A contraction seized my body so suddenly I bent forward, breathless. My water broke.
Eleanor caught me before I fell.
She held me with a strength born from twenty-eight years of waiting and called for the medical team.
My son was born that evening, five weeks early, in a private medical wing I had not known existed that morning.
His name was Leo.
He had my eyes.
Which meant he had Eleanor’s eyes.
Which meant he had the eyes of a family I had never known existed.
As I held him, I tried to understand the truth of my life.
I had not been unwanted.
I had been stolen.
Someone had spent nearly three decades searching for me.
Someone had mourned me.
Someone had never stopped.
