BONDING

ERICA

ERICA

The soft, leather smell of my luxury SUV was a stark contrast to the dust and old wood of the bamboo house we had just left behind. Mum sat in the passenger seat beside me, clutching her worn leather handbag tightly against her lap.

When I had mentioned the penthouse, the private security, and the high-end financial district where I lived, she hadn't gasped or marvelled at my wealth. My sweet mother wasn't moved by concrete towers, designer furniture, or high bank balances. She was glad I had succeeded, I could see the quiet, proud warmth in her eyes when she looked at my clean suit and sleek car—but brick and gold meant nothing to a woman who had lived her entire life on pure love and sacrifice.

What moved her was family.

The moment the SUV rolled out of the dusty alleyway and onto the main highway, her face transformed. Her tired eyes lit up with a brilliant, energetic spark, and the questions started pouring out of her mouth like a overflowing river.

"Erica, tell me... how are they?" she asked, leaning toward me, her voice trembling with excitement. "Are they healthy? Do they eat well? God, six years... my babies are six years old already!"

A soft smile touched my lips as I kept my eyes on the road. "They are healthy, Mum. They're very smart, a bit too smart for their own good sometimes. Leo loves reading books on law and science, and Lucas can't stop playing with anything that has wheels or gears."

"Oh, sweet Jesus..." she murmured, pressing her hands together in a quiet prayer. "And who do they look like? Do they have your eyes? Tell me they have your smile!"

"They have my dark eyes," I said gently, though a quiet pang hit my chest as I added, "but as they grew, their faces... their sharp jaws and the way they stare at people... they look just like their father."

Mum gasped softly, her eyes widening. "Have you told them about me, Erica? Do they know they have a grandmother who has been praying for them every single night of their lives?"

"I told them stories about you, Mum," I reassured her, glancing sideways to see her wiping a stray tear from her cheek. "I told them their grandmother is the strongest, kindest woman in the world. They've been waiting to meet you."

She went on and on, asking a hundred questions a minute. What were their favorite meals? Did they sleep well at night? Were they tall for their age? Did they know how to hold a pencil properly? I answered every single one with patience, happy to hear her voice so full of life after six long years of quiet sorrow.

And then, one single question brought an abrupt, suffocating silence into the car.

"Does Andrew, their father, know about them?"

My fingers tightened around the leather steering wheel until my knuckles turned stark white. The gentle warmth in my chest instantly vanished, replaced by a cold, sharp knot in my stomach.

I stared straight ahead at the asphalt highway, my jaw clenching tightly. That question was the one question out of everything she had asked that I didn't want to confront, a question I didn't have a clean, easy answer to.

"Mum, I do not know!" I replied, my voice coming out harsher and sharper than I intended.

I wasn't mad at her. I could never be mad at my mother. But the sheer mention of Andrew's name—and the realization that he had tied his vast fortune to my boys' names while claiming he had searched for me for six years—sent a wave of bitter anger rushing through my veins.

Mum didn't flinch at my tone. She turned her head, looking at me with those soft, deep eyes that held decades of traditional wisdom and quiet grace.

"Erica," she said softly, her voice steady and calm. "He has the right to know about his children."

I bit the inside of my cheek, refusing to look at her.

"He is their father, Erica," she continued gently, her tone carrying the weight of a sermon I had heard a hundred times growing up. "No matter what happened between the two of you, no matter what mistakes were made or what pain was caused, blood is blood. A man has a right to know his own flesh and blood, and children have a right to know the man whose blood runs in their veins. You cannot hide two growing boys from the world forever."

My mum was a kind, traditional woman. She believed in doing what was right according to God and human decency, regardless of how deeply someone had hurt you. To her, honor and family rights transcended personal bitter feelings.

I didn't answer her. I couldn't. I just pressed my lips into a thin line, ignored the rest of her gentle sermons, and drove quietly through the city streets until we reached the underground garage of my private apartment tower.

When the private elevator doors opened directly into the sunlit living room of my penthouse, the silence from the car vanished in an instant.

"Mum!"

Two identical, dark-haired little boys came sprinting across the polished hardwood floor, their dark eyes wide with curiosity and wonder. Leo was holding a heavy hardbound book, while Lucas had a small remote-control car clutched in his hand.

Mum froze near the entryway. Her breath hitched in her throat, her hands dropping to her sides as tears instantly flooded her eyes again.

"My babies..." she whispered, her voice cracking.

The boys stopped a few feet away, looking back and forth between me and the older woman standing beside me. They looked at her silver-streaked hair, her faded cotton dress, and the deep, overflowing love shining in her eyes. They didn't need an introduction. They didn't need to be told who she was. Somewhere deep inside their young souls, the blood connection clicked instantly.

"Grandma?" Lucas asked softly, tilting his head.

Before I could even speak, Mum dropped her handbag onto the floor and dropped straight down to her knees. She opened her arms wide, not caring about her tired joints or her aching back.

"Come here, my sweet boys," she sobbed happily. "Come to your grandmother."

Leo and Lucas didn't hesitate for a single second. They abandoned their toys on the floor and threw themselves right into her arms.

What followed over the next few hours blew my mind. I had grown up knowing my mother as a quiet, serious, and deeply cautious woman—a widow who carried the heavy trauma of my father's violent death on her shoulders. But tonight, watching her with her grandsons, I saw a side of my mother I had never seen before.

I didn't know Mum was this playful.

She was down on the plush living room carpet, crawling on her hands and knees while Lucas pushed his toy cars over her back, giggling uncontrollably. She sat at the dining table with Leo, making funny faces and animated voice effects as she read through his children's storybooks. She chased them around the kitchen island, her tired face flushed with bright, youthful joy, her laughter ringing loudly against the high glass windows of the penthouse.

For six years, she had lived like a ghost in a decaying bamboo house, sitting on untouched billions while her heart withered away in solitude. Now, surrounded by her grandchildren, she looked alive again.

By nine o'clock that evening, the boys were completely exhausted from playing. Mum tucked them into their king-sized bed, singing them a soft, traditional lullaby in her low, soothing voice until their dark eyelashes fluttered shut and their breathing turned heavy and slow.

Later that night, after the penthouse had fallen completely silent, Mum sat on the velvet sofa in the dimly lit living room, resting her feet. I walked over from the kitchen, carrying two hot mugs of herbal tea, and sat down beside her.

"They love you so much already, Mum," I said softly, passing a mug to her.

"They are angels, Erica," she replied, a gentle, contented smile resting on her face as she took a sip. "Pure, beautiful angels."

She set her mug down on the glass coffee table and reached into her cardigan pocket, pulling out her old, basic feature phone.

"Here, Erica," she said, handing the phone to me. "Look at the pictures you took earlier on my phone. Show me how to open that album again so I can look at my boys before I sleep."

I took the small phone from her hands, smiling as I navigated through the simple menu to open the photo gallery. I showed her the photos I had snapped of her, Leo, and Lucas playing on the carpet earlier.

While I was swiping through the screen, showing her how to zoom in on their smiling faces, a loud chime echoed from the device. A text notification banner popped up across the top of the screen.

It was an automated banking alert from her account.

My eyes scanned the text message:

CREDIT ALERT: $2,000,000.00 HAS BEEN DEPOSITED INTO YOUR ACCOUNT FROM LORD ANDREW ESTATE FOUNDATION. CURRENT BALANCE: AVAILABLE.

I froze, the smile instantly dying on my lips.

Mum looked over my shoulder at the screen and let out a soft, knowing sigh.

"Oh, the date is the 20th," Mum said calmly, taking the phone back from my numb fingers. "He sends that on every 20th. He has never missed a single month in six years."

She set the phone down on the table as if it were nothing special, completely unbothered by the two million dollars that had just landed in her account.

I sat there in the quiet room, my heart pounding heavily against my ribs as I stared at the dark screen of the phone.

Two million dollars. Every single month. For six years.

My mind raced into a dark, chaotic spiral. The sheer arrogance of the man angered me, but what sickened me even more was the deep, hypocritical disgust I felt toward him. He was a powerful mafia lord who threw millions of dollars around like pocket change, pretending to play the dutiful protector by sending upkeep money to my mother while willing his multi-billion-dollar empire to my secret sons.

Yet, this was the exact same despicable man who had stooped so low as to sleep with my two best friends—the same man I had caught naked in a raunchy, explicit threesome with Jessica and Annabel six years ago. The same man who had broken my heart, crushed my pride, and made me feel like a disposable, poor girl he could play with and throw away.

I pulled my knees up to my chest on the sofa, resting my chin against them as I stared out the floor-to-ceiling glass windows at the glittering city lights below.

How was I supposed to protect my family from him now? How was I supposed to keep my sons safe and build a wall between us and a man who had already woven his money, his legal power, and his reach so deeply into every corner of our lives?

I wanted to distance myself and my children from Lord Andrew forever. I wanted to wipe his name out of our story and raise my boys far away from his dark, treacherous world.

But as I looked at my mother's calm face, and remembered Andrew's piercing dark eyes standing in my office, a heavy, terrifying truth settled in my gut:

Lord Andrew was already here. And no matter how hard I fought him in court or in my heart, he was never going to let us go.

But he has to go!