Chapter 3

In the days that followed, I sold the gold bracelet and earrings from my wedding to cover the cost of Leon's surgery.

The Carter family came to the hospital every day to cause a scene.

Ethan's uncle, Robert Carter, would pound on the bed rail, calling me a liar and accusing me of being part of a conspiracy. He demanded that I return the 300 thousand dollars, insisting that I come up with the money no matter what.

Ethan stopped him several times, but he looked just as broken. After all, seven years of love had ended like this, on his wedding day no less.

I stopped trying to explain.

Instead, I hired a lawyer to draft a declaration terminating the adoption and our parent-child relationship.

Then I spent three days tracing the bank transactions.

The result crushed me.

Within two hours of the 300 thousand transfer, the money had been split into dozens of transactions, routed through four intermediary accounts, and ultimately deposited into three overseas cryptocurrency wallets.

The bank employee shook his head.

"This was done very professionally. It's almost impossible for an individual to recover the money."

I stood outside the bank for a long time.

25 years ago, in the second year of my marriage, I discovered that my fallopian tubes were blocked and that my chances of getting pregnant again were extremely low.

That winter, the orphanage called us about an abandoned baby the police had found. Her biological father was a wanted drug trafficker, and her mother was nowhere to be found.

When I arrived at the scene, I found the baby stuffed inside a cardboard box, her lips blue from the cold. She could barely make a sound.

The police believed she had been deliberately abandoned by her biological father, who had staged the scene and left her with almost no chance of survival. With no further leads, the case was eventually shelved.

They asked if we were willing to adopt her.

I tucked the tiny baby inside my coat and carried her home.

25 years later, I still had the original police report locked away in the back of our safe.

I had never dared to look at it.

I named her Sophie Bennett. The name represented quiet strength—a reflection of how strong she had been to survive until the day we found her.

For 25 years, she never went without. Leon and I scrimped and saved to pay for her education, piano lessons, and study-abroad trips.

And what did we get in return?

She called me a monster on a livestream. She stole our emergency savings and left Leon fighting for his life in the ICU.

On the afternoon of the 12th day, I received a phone call.

The number was local, and the caller ID showed that it was the city police department.

A man spoke. "May I speak with Ms. Margaret Lyons?"

I thought Sophie had gotten into trouble overseas or that the people behind the scam had come after me.

"This is she. What happened?"

There was a two-second pause.

"Ms. Lyons, we've recently been reviewing evidence from several cold cases dating back 25 years. Among the items we found is a silver locket engraved with the name 'Lyons'. According to our records, it may be connected to the missing infant case you reported in 2000."

My knees went weak. I had to grab the wall for support.

It was a silver locket engraved with "I'll love you for a hundred years to come" on the front and my last name "Lyons" on the back.

There was also a faint scratch in the lower-left corner. I had made that scratch myself at a jewelry store when I was eight months pregnant, before fastening it around my daughter's neck.

It was the only thing my biological daughter had on her when she disappeared.

25 years had passed, and it was still my deepest nightmare.

Now, this phone call had torn it open again.

"What happened to my daughter?"

My voice echoed through the hospital hallway, so sharp that even I barely recognized it.

The man's voice remained measured.

"Ms. Lyons, please come to the Criminal Investigation Division at the city police headquarters tomorrow at 9:00 am. We'll explain everything in person."

He didn't say she was alive, nor did he say that she was dead.

I hung up and sank to the floor, my back against the cold wall.

If she was still alive, where had she been for 25 years?

And if she wasn't, why had her locket appeared only now?

I stayed there for a long time, until a nurse came to get me to sign the paperwork for Leon's tests the next day.

I didn't tell him about the call. He couldn't handle any more emotional stress.

But I didn't sleep a wink that night.