A paternity test

Liam’s POV

I stepped out into the cold and the night hit me like someone opened a freezer door in my face. Amelia’s taxi was already rolling away, and my pulse felt like it was trapped in my throat.

A son.

The word wouldn’t stop echoing in my skull, loud enough to drown out Eleanor’s voice still nagging beside me.

“She abandoned you. Don’t let her manipulate you again,” she insisted, fingers curling around my arm like a leash she thought she owned.

I peeled her off me slowly, my eyes glued to the direction Amelia disappeared. “Stop,” I muttered. My voice came out too calm for the way my chest was burning. “Just stop talking.”

Eleanor swallowed, offended but masking it like she always did.

“She ran from the hospital without a word,” she repeated.

I remembered that morning. The IV in my hand. The white ceiling. The blurry confusion. The empty chair where she always sat. The divorce papers placed neatly over my blanket like a final goodbye.

But that wasn’t even the part that haunted me.