Chapter 2

The post was still on the front page. New replies kept crawling up like snakes.

An account named CedricSelwyn_Official wrote, [Some people really do not know their place. He spent 20 years out there as a nobody, dirt-poor and reeking of failure, and now he thinks he can walk back in and take everything that belongs to me. As if he deserves any of it.

[But that lawyer girlfriend he had been with for ten years? She was even easier to handle than I expected.

[All I had to do was shed a few tears in front of her and tell her how scared I was now that my "brother" was back, how it felt like everything I had was about to be taken away. Then I casually mentioned that if he insisted on pressing charges and turned it into a media circus, would that hurt her career? Would that drag the Selwyn name through the mud?

[Guess what? She got it right away. She went straight to him and said she could not take his case because of conflict of interest. Behind the scenes, she did everything she could to help the kidnappers walk free. She personally slammed the door shut on his only shot at justice.

[The funniest part? That idiot was probably still applauding his wonderful girlfriend for sticking to her principles.

[That was what he got for coming back and trying to take what was mine.]

The glow of the screen burned my eyes, yet every word seared into my brain like molten iron. That was the truth, naked and absolutely merciless.

I gathered every last shred of strength I had left. My eyelids trembled once and cracked open the slightest bit.

My blurred vision settled on Charlotte's face. I dragged my cracked, bleeding lips apart, my voice barely a rasp.

"Your so-called conflict of interest. Was that really your hands being tied, or was it a guilty conscience?"

Charlotte's body went rigid. Her eyes darted away, not daring to meet mine. "Carrick, you are delirious."

"Delirious?" I forced the corners of my mouth upward, trying to smile, yet all I tasted was more blood.

My vision kept going black in waves as old memories forced their way in.

At 18, under a dim streetlight on the walk home, she had fumbled through her pockets for a tissue to hand me while her own eyes turned red first. She told me, "Someday I am going to study law and make sure nobody ever hurts you and gets away with it."

At 20, after a late-night study session in the dead of winter, she had pressed her only hand warmer into my arms and rubbed her hands together, insisting she was not cold. Yet on the walk back to my dorm, she had quietly slipped her hand into my coat pocket.

At 24, the day she won her first case bonus, she had braved the freezing wind to meet me outside my office, wrapped her scarf around my neck, and grinned with her eyes practically sparkling.

"Come on. I have money now. Dinner is on me, anywhere you want."

"I thought you were my redemption, my family, my everything for the rest of my life. Yet this was what I got."

I looked at the woman I had loved for ten full years, the woman I had believed I would spend my life with, and the last trace of feeling behind my eyes went cold.

"This was how you got me justice?"

Charlotte's lips moved, yet not a single word came out.

The door to the hospital room burst open. Mom rushed in and saw Charlotte standing there, hollow and shaken.

I lay on the bed, barely breathing.

She stormed straight up to Charlotte. "Charlotte Clayborne! What did you say to Carrick? What did you do to him?"

Dad's face was ashen. He shoved Charlotte aside. "I told you to look after Carrick. Was this what you called looking after him? Get out. Now."

Charlotte stumbled back a step. In the end, she said nothing and walked out.

Mom threw herself at my bedside. Her tears fell onto the back of my hand, one after another.

"Carrick, sweetheart, do not be scared.

"It was my fault. I did not protect you. We spent 20 years looking for you, 20 years hoping and praying, and we had only just gotten you back."

Dad's eyes were red too, his voice breaking. "I swear, no matter who did this, no matter what it takes, I will find every last person who hurt you.

"They will pay a hundred times over, a thousand times over. You are our son, our own flesh and blood. Anyone who touches you might as well be trying to kill me."

They stayed at my bedside, blaming themselves over and over, making promise after promise, pushing back the cold and despair that Charlotte had left behind.

Something frozen inside my chest seemed to crack, just barely, letting in the faintest trace of warmth.

It was true. Charlotte had changed. Maybe ten years of love simply could not hold up against the weight of reality.

However, Mom and Dad were my blood, my family.

A lover could betray, could weigh the options and choose herself. However, my parents had searched for me for 20 years. That kind of love, lost and then found again, could not possibly be fake.

Could it?