Chapter 4
I could not move.
Logan slid off the couch and ran toward the door.
I caught him just in time.
“No.”
He struggled.
“Daddy!”
My heart shattered at the sound.
On the other side of the door, the voice came again.
“Cat, please. I know you’re in there.”
It was David.
Not a memory.
Not a voicemail.
Not grief playing tricks in a dark room.
David.
Luca pressed a finger to his lips and checked the peephole.
His whole body changed.
“It’s him.”
I stood with Logan behind me.
“Open it.”
Luca looked back.
“You sure?”
No.
I was not sure of anything anymore.
“Open it.”
He unlocked the door.
David Winters stood in the rain.
Thinner.
Bearded.
A scar cut through his left eyebrow.
His jacket was soaked.
His eyes found mine, then Logan.
For one second, nobody breathed.
Then Logan broke free.
“Daddy!”
David dropped to his knees.
Logan crashed into him.
The sound David made was not a word.
It was grief, love, guilt, and relief tearing through a man at once.
He wrapped our son in his arms and shook.
I stood frozen.
I had imagined this moment in dreams.
In nightmares.
At the grave.
In grocery aisles when I saw men with David’s shoulders.
But in every version, I ran to him.
In this one, I could not.
Because he was alive.
And I had buried him.
I had starved beside our son while he breathed somewhere under the same sky.
David looked up at me.
“Cat.”
I slapped him.
The room went silent.
Logan gasped.
My hand burned.
David did not defend himself.
He only lowered his head.
“I deserved that.”
I started crying then.
Not soft tears.
Ugly ones.
“Where were you?”
His face crumpled.
“Trying to come home.”
“You let me think you were dead.”
“I was told you would die if I didn’t.”
“Who told you?”
He looked at Luca.
Then at Father Matteo.
“Federal handler. Name was Agent Cole. He said the people I exposed had eyes everywhere. He said if I contacted you, they would take Logan next.”
I held up the hospital bracelet.
“Like this baby?”
David’s face drained.
“You found it.”
“What is it?”
He swallowed.
“Proof. They were selling infants through fake death records. I found six cases before my crash. That bracelet belonged to a baby taken from Hopkins after birth.”
My knees weakened.
“And your crash?”
“Staged. I survived. Romano’s people pulled me out before the police arrived.”
I looked at Luca.
He nodded.
“David was working with Alessandro. Quietly.”
“Why would my husband work with a mafia boss?”
David looked at me.
“Because the law was compromised. Judges. Hospital administrators. Federal agents. I didn’t know who to trust.”
“And you trusted him?”
“I trusted his motive.”
Luca said, “One of the stolen babies was Alessandro’s nephew.”
That hit the room hard.
David continued.
“I hid the memory card in Captain Bear the night before the crash. I thought if anything happened, you would keep the bear close to Logan.”
I almost laughed through my tears.
“I did. For two years.”
“I know.”
“How?”
He looked ashamed.
“I watched when I could.”
The words landed badly.
Watched.
While rent crushed me.
While Logan asked why fathers died.
While I cried into pillows after double shifts.
“You watched?”
“I couldn’t approach.”
“You could watch us suffer?”
His eyes filled.
“No. I watched you survive. And it killed me.”
“That is not the same.”
“I know.”
Logan looked between us, confused and frightened.
I forced myself to kneel.
“Baby, Daddy and I are angry and sad. But you are safe.”
He clung to David’s jacket.
“Daddy stay?”
David looked at me.
I did not answer.
A phone rang in Luca’s pocket.
He listened for three seconds.
Then his face hardened.
“Alessandro is awake.”
Father Matteo whispered, “Thank God.”
Luca looked at David.
“He says Vanessa escaped.”
My blood went cold.
David stood slowly with Logan in his arms.
“Then she’ll go for the file.”
I held up the memory card.
“She’ll have to go through me.”
David stared at me.
For the first time since he returned, something like pride moved across his face.
May you like
“Cat—”
“No,” I said. “You lost the right to protect me by lying. Now you fight beside me or get out of my way.”
