Chapter 6 - We Discovered the Children Had Been Counted Wrong
Four.
The word destroyed the last certainty I had.
Maren sat down.
“I didn't have four babies.”
Paige looked at her.
“You did.”
“No.”
“You were told one baby was a stillbirth.”
Maren shook her head.
“I heard three cries.”
“Yes.”
Paige's eyes filled.
“You heard three because one of the babies had already been moved before you woke.”
I looked at her.
“What are you saying?”
“Tessa wasn't after one baby.”
She pointed at the documents.
“She wanted all four.”
Maren's hands trembled.
“Four?”
Paige nodded.
“One girl and three boys.”
I stared at Leo and Lucas.
“Where are the others?”
“Two are with you.”
“One is Emma.”
“And the fourth?”
Paige looked away.
“That child belongs to Tessa.”
My anger became something cold.
“We go there.”
“To where?”
Paige gave us an address.
A private school in Nashville.
Tessa had enrolled a child under a false identity.
A five-year-old boy.
Five years old.
Older than our twins.
That meant he had been born before them.
I looked at Maren.
She was pale.
“Rowan.”
“Yes.”
“I think he is connected to my first pregnancy.”
“What?”
She closed her eyes.
“Before you and I married, I was pregnant.”
I stared at her.
“What?”
“I lost the baby.”
“When?”
“Three months before our wedding.”
I remembered that period.
Maren had been depressed.
She barely ate.
I thought she had been stressed.
She never told me the truth.
“Was the baby mine?”
“Yes.”
I couldn't breathe.
“Then that child…”
“Was supposed to be our first.”
The hidden boy wasn't part of the triplets.
He was another child.
A child everyone had believed was dead.
Maren began crying.
“I gave birth early.”
“What happened?”
“They told me he died.”
“Did he?”
“No.”
The room became silent.
Paige spoke softly.
“Tessa's family found out the child survived.”
“They took him?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because your mother's lawyers wanted leverage against you.”
I looked at Maren.
She had lost one child years before.
Then four babies were entangled in the same network.
The cruelty was too large to comprehend.
We drove to the school.
The boy was there.
His name was Ethan.
He had blond hair.
Green eyes.
And a small birthmark on his wrist.
Maren saw him through the window.
She knew.
She whispered his name.
“Ethan.”
The boy turned.
He stared at her.
Then smiled.
“You're the lady from my dream.”
Maren collapsed.
I caught her.
Tessa appeared behind us.
She looked exhausted.
Not glamorous.
Not confident.
Just broken.
“You were never supposed to find all of them.”
I stepped forward.
“Where is Emma?”
“I don't know.”
“You know.”
“I lost her too.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
She started crying.
“I was manipulated.”
“You destroyed my marriage.”
“Yes.”
“You stole my children.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe Maren betrayed me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because I was told it would save my life.”
“Who told you?”
She looked toward the parking lot.
An SUV waited there.
Inside sat my mother.
Sofia.
She rolled down the window.
“Come home, Rowan.”
I stared.
“You did this.”
She smiled.
“I protected this family.”
“No.”
I stepped toward her.
“You destroyed it.”
She looked at Maren.
“She was never one of us.”
Maren stood beside me.
“She was my child.”
Sofia's eyes hardened.
“You had too many.”
That sentence made me realize there was no saving her.
She had never seen children.
Only assets.
I turned to Tessa.
“Where is Emma?”
Tessa whispered:
“She was sent to a woman in Alabama.”
“Who?”
“Her name is Claire.”
“Claire who?”
“Claire Bellamy.”
I froze.
My grandmother's name.
“She isn't alive.”
May you like
Tessa's eyes filled with fear.
“She is.”
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