LOGINTimothy's POV My phone rang at 2 AM.I was not fully asleep so the phone's vibration on the nightstand pulled me the rest of the way up before the second ring.It was an unknown number.Without thinking, I answered.The voice that came through was distorted. Digitally processed into something flat and genderless, the voice of someone who understood that anonymity was its own kind of power."Mr. Chase," it said. "We thought it was time to speak directly."I immediately sat up. But I did not turn on the light."I've been expecting this," I replied."We know." There was a pause that was too comfortable to be accidental. "That is one of the things we appreciate about you. You are rarely surprised. It makes conversations like this more efficient.""Then be efficient.""The three children," the voice started. "Kasey, Kylie, and Kai. We want them delivered to our research facility within thirty days. All three. Together. The arrangement will be comfortable, Mr. Chase. They will be treated a
Timothy's POV The encrypted message arrived at 3 AM on a Tuesday.I was already awake. I had been awake for most of the night, sitting at the desk in the hospital's private office that the administration had made available to me, working through security reports that Carson had sent over at midnight with a note that just said: Read these before morning.And I had read them.Then I had sat with them for two hours and thought about what they meant and what they required and what the appropriate response was to a situation that was escalating in ways I had hoped, until recently, I had successfully prevented.The encrypted channel was one I had closed four years ago. Or believed I had closed. The message that came through it was short and exact in the way that messages from people who did not need to explain themselves tended to be.“The children. All three. Final request before we proceed.”I read it once before I closed the channel, picked up my phone, and called Carson.He answered on
Teresa's POV The first thing Kai asked for when he was fully awake was water.The second thing he asked for was me.Mei had told me once, in the early months when I had first left him in the village and driven back to Dhuran with my chest hollowed out, that he always asked for me first thing in the morning before he was fully awake. Before his eyes opened, before the day had fully arrived. Her name for it was his checking call. He still did it two weeks after surgery.Every morning his eyes would open and find the chair beside his bed where I had slept, and he would look at me for a moment with that quiet, checking attention, and then something in his small body would settle and he would be ready for the day.And I was not going anywhere.I had slept in that chair for fourteen nights. My back had opinions about this that I was choosing to ignore. The nursing staff had twice offered me the family rest room down the corridor and twice I had thanked them and stayed where I was.Kai's r
Kylie's POV I had known before she said it.I had known the moment I walked through the door and saw his face against the white pillow, pale and still and surrounded by machines. I had known the way I knew things sometimes before I had the words for them.But hearing Teresa say it out loud was different from knowing it silently.It made it real in a way that settled into my chest and stayed there.Kasey was already moving towards the bed slowly. The way he moved when he was going to something he wanted to examine without disturbing. He stopped at the side rail and looked at the boy in the bed for a long moment without speaking.I moved to stand beside him.Up close, the similarities were not… small. They were not the kind of thing you could dismiss as coincidence or explain away as people just looking alike. They were specific and detailed and undeniable in the way that facts were undeniable when you looked at them directly.His nose. The exact curve of it at the tip.The line of his
Teresa's POV The surgery started at six in the morning.By six fifteen I had already walked the length of the waiting room four times and memorized every detail of it without meaning to. The arrangement of the chairs. The pattern on the floor. The quality of the light coming through the window at the far end.Timothy was already there when I arrived. Standing near the window with his hands in his pockets and his back partially turned, the way he stood when he was thinking something through and didn't want his face read while he did it.He heard me come in. I knew because his shoulders shifted slightly. But he didn't turn around immediately.We had not spoken since the transfer, so there was nothing comfortable about sharing this room with him. But Kai was in surgery.And that made everything else secondary in a way that required no discussion.I sat down, while Timothy remained at the window, and we waited.An hour passed. Then two. Then three.Somewhere during the fourth hour Timot
Timothy's POV "We are taking him to Dhuran," I said. "Today."Teresa looked up at me from across the bed. Her eyes were still red at the edges from the yard. But her hands were steady and her voice, when she spoke, was the controlled voice of a woman who had learned to function through things that should have stopped her completely."He doesn't travel well," she whispered. "His heart rate destabilizes with stress and unfamiliar environments trigger…""I have a medical transport vehicle. Equipped. Dr. Green can ride with him. You can ride with him." I held her gaze. "He will be monitored every minute of the journey. I will make sure of it."She looked at me for a moment before she nodded once and turned back to Kai.I stepped out and called Carson.Within twenty minutes the calls were made. The pediatric cardiac center in Dhuran had been notified. The department head, a man who understood that a call from my office meant everything stopped and reorganized immediately, had already begu
Teresa's POV The week flew by as I adjusted to life at St. Catherine's Hospital, with Nicole's relentless energy pulling me in a dozen directions at once.I familiarized myself with the hospital’s layout, memorizing which corridors led where and which staircases were fastest during emergencies. I
Teresa's POV Master Liu died on a cold Tuesday morning in early spring.I found her at dawn, lying peacefully in her narrow bed. Her weathered face was relaxed, almost smiling, like she had seen something beautiful in those final moments.I stood in the doorway for a long time, just looking at her
Timothy's POV The ballroom of my penthouse was transformed into something out of a child's fantasy.Custom cakes shaped like castles towered on tables draped in silk. Professional entertainers moved through the crowd, their faces painted bright and cheerful. A magician pulled rabbits from hats whi
Teresa's POV How was I supposed to choose?But even as the question crossed my mind, I already knew the answer.I couldn't keep them all. Timothy Chase's lawyers would come tomorrow morning with court orders and legal documents and armed security if necessary. They would take what was legally his.







