My breath stopped. “I’ll make you my wife soon,” he said without a tremor. “We’ll wait for the right time to—dispose of her. During my parents’ anniversary—we can frame her cheating with someone else. They’ll approve the divorce. You know how my family is when it comes to marriage, so we have to make sure they can’t say no, and make her look like the bad one.”
“Do it soon. Lorenzo’s growing; he wants you to bring him to Family Day. Don’t hide him. I’m tired of this.”
Footsteps thudded. A small voice called, “Daddy!” Lorenzo ran to them. Amber caught him; Nathan lifted him into his arms. The boy’s face was open and trusting. “Daddy,” he said again, and that one word split the world I thought I knew.
Nathan laughed softly, brushing the boy’s hair. “Be careful, buddy. You know you can’t just run around like that…”
Amber smiled and touched the child’s cheek. “Let him. After all, his heart is safe now—thanks for giving it to him, and not to your daughter with Emerald.”
Nathan chuckled, the sound low and careless. “Come on… it’s not like I ever wanted a child with her. It’s you, Amber. It’s always been you. Forever.”
I pressed my hand to my belly. The life inside me kicked. I thought I would be able to surprise my husband, Nathan, with the news of a baby after losing our first child three years ago, but I was the one surprised.
Back then, our daughter, Gem, was only five when she was diagnosed with a congenital heart disease—something the doctors said came from Nathan’s family line. We waited for a donor for months, and when a heart finally came, we thought it was her chance to live. But the transplant failed. They said it wasn’t a match. Gem died on the table, and all that time, I believed that was the real reason—just a tragedy, just bad luck.
Now I know the truth.
I ran until my legs trembled. I drove straight to St. Isidore’s Hospital—the place that had taken my daughter. Doctor Morales had been the man who told me there had been nothing more to do. Now I found him, and I did not beg. I did not plead. I threatened.
“You tell me everything now,” I said. “Or my brother Reid will do what he does.”
Reid’s name carries weight in this city—whispers of mafia ties, favors paid in fear. I hadn’t seen him in years; life had pushed us into different paths. Still, just saying his name made people hurry and strip their lies away. Doctor Morales’s hands shook.