Then, quietly: “You weren’t supposed to find that.”
I let out a hollow laugh. “That’s your answer?”
“It’s not what you think.”
“Then tell me!” I cried. “Because it looks like you and my sister had a child behind my back!”
“Stop,” he snapped. “Don’t say it like that.”
“Like the truth?” I whispered. Tears streamed down my face. “Did you love her?”
He didn’t answer.
My voice dropped. “Where is she, Mark?”
A long breath on the other end.
“She’s safe.”
I froze. “Safe? From me?”
“You don’t understand.”
“Then explain!”
Another pause.
“I’ve been sending money to the woman who raised her.”
Raised. Not raising.
“She’s… alive?” I whispered.
“Yes.”
I closed my eyes, tears spilling freely. “Twenty years… and you never told me?”
“I was trying to protect you.”
I let out a broken laugh.
“From what?” I asked.
But deep down, I already knew. He hadn’t been protecting me; he had been hiding her. I don’t remember ending the call. One second, Mark was speaking, the next there was just silence and the sound of my own breathing, uneven and loud in the empty garage.
I stared at the blanket in my hands.
Chloe’s child.
Mark’s child.
A life they had built somewhere else… while I was right here, believing I knew them both. I let out a shaky laugh. “All those years…” I whispered. “All those years I thought you were grieving with me.”
My chest tightened.
No.
He hadn’t just been grieving. He had been hiding something.
Someone.
I forced myself to stand, gripping the edge of the workbench until my fingers hurt. The receipts were still scattered on the floor. That name and the address.
I bent down slowly and picked them up, one by one.
“Who are you?” I murmured, staring at the repeated name. “And how long have you known about me?”
A cold thought slipped in.
Did she know who I was? Or had they erased me from that story completely?
My phone buzzed suddenly in my hand, making me flinch.
Mark.
I stared at the screen as it rang. Once. Twice. Three times.
My thumb hovered over the answer button — but I didn’t move.
Not yet.
Instead, I looked back at the address on the receipt, then at the door, and back at my phone.
The ringing stopped.
A second later, a message came through.
Please don’t do anything until I get back. We need to talk.
I let out a quiet, hollow breath, then I picked up my keys.
“If you wanted to talk,” I whispered, heading for the door, “you should’ve done it twenty years ago.”
My hand tightened around the address. And this time…
I didn’t wait for his call.
