04

Hannah's POV

Leo's new bedroom was a drawer.

Rosa had emptied the bottom drawer of her old dresser, scrubbed it clean, and lined it with three soft towels. She also rolled another towel along the edge so Leo could not bump his head. I hated that drawer, but it was clean and warm, and we had nowhere else to go.

I slept on Rosa's couch every night with my feet hanging off the end. Rosa left for her work shifts before the sun came up, and she still came home with groceries. She never complained, even though the unpaid bills were piling up next to her TV, and feeding two extra people made everything harder.

One week after Brett threw us out, I walked into Brightwater Fertility.

The receptionist became stiff the moment she heard my name.

"I would like copies of my treatment records, please, and any information about the embryo you used for my pregnancy," I told her.

"I am sorry, Mrs. Ashcroft," the receptionist said. "We cannot discuss that without an appointment."

"A DNA test says my husband is not my baby's father. I need to know if something went wrong during my procedure here. He threw me and our son out in the snow because of it."

She stopped typing. "Our records are flawless."

She said those words too quickly.

"I have not even told you which procedure I am asking about."

Her eyes moved toward the office behind her. "Any complaints about the lab have to be sent in writing, ma'am. We cannot release private information without following the proper steps."

"They are my own records."

"You will receive a response." She turned to the next patient and dismissed me.

I sent three written requests that week, but nobody answered.

The lawyers were even worse.

The first lawyer read Brett's DNA report and then closed my folder. "Without evidence, you are asking me to go after a major fertility clinic and one of the most powerful families in Chicago. My advice is to negotiate a settlement and move on with your life."

"Their family lawyer already emailed me. I get nothing, and they will not even give me my own clothes back. What exactly am I supposed to negotiate with them?"

"Then I suggest you prepare for a very difficult fight, Ms. Ashcroft." He stood up and held the door open for me.

The second lawyer stopped me halfway through my story to tell me that his firm worked for the Ashcrofts. The third lawyer was kind, but his answer was the same.

Rosa found me sitting on the floor beside Leo's drawer when I got back home.

She crouched in front of me. "Another no?"

I held up three fingers.

"I am tired of being rescued, Rosa. You buy the groceries. You hold Leo so I can shower. My son sleeps in your dresser because I cannot give him a bed, and I cannot even pay a lawyer to listen to me for ten minutes."

Rosa sat down beside me and bumped my shoulder with hers. "Money is not the only way to find answers, Hannah. You are smarter than any of those lawyers."

Leo kicked inside his drawer and made soft sounds at the ceiling.

If Brett was not Leo's father, then somebody else was. And if a mistake had happened at Brightwater, then Leo's real father might not even know that he had a son.

I ordered one of those home DNA kits that matches you with relatives online. I could not afford it, but I bought it anyway.

I waited until Leo had been fed before I opened the box. The instructions said to rub a swab inside his cheek, seal it in a tube, and mail it back.

The swab shook in my hand. "I am sorry, baby. I know this does not mean anything to you, but Mommy needs to know where you came from."

Leo grabbed my finger with his whole tiny hand.

I finished the test, sealed the tube, and dropped the box in the mail the next morning.

After that, I checked my email before every feeding and refreshed the website during every nap.

Rosa took the phone out of my hand one night. "You are going to make yourself sick checking this every five minutes."

"What if the results come while I am asleep?"

"Then they will still be there when you wake up." She gave the phone back and sat next to me. "What happens when you get a name?"

"I find Leo's father, and I ask him what happened at Brightwater."

Rosa nodded slowly. "Just remember that a DNA match can give you a name. It cannot tell you what kind of man he is."

The results arrived six weeks after I mailed the box.

Leo was asleep beside me on the couch when the notification appeared on my phone. My heart raced so hard that I had to set the phone down and breathe before I opened it.

I scrolled past the ancestry charts and the distant cousins until one name stopped me.

Tessa Locke. Close family match.

Under her name, the site said: Likely aunt.

If that was correct, then Tessa was the sister of Leo's biological father.

Her profile linked to a brother who appeared all over Chicago's business news.

Gabriel Locke.

I searched his name. The first result said he had founded Locke Freight, one of the biggest trucking companies in the country. The second result called him one of the richest men in Chicago. The third result was an interview about surviving cancer.

I opened the interview. In the photo, Gabriel stood outside a medical research center and held a plaque.

The headline said: Billionaire Gabriel Locke Funds Fertility Research After Cancer Survival.

He had been diagnosed with cancer at twenty-nine. He froze his sperm at a clinic before chemotherapy so that he and his wife could have a child later. His wife, Elise, died before they could use the sperm.

I scrolled down to look for the name of the clinic.

Brightwater Fertility.

A cold feeling started in my stomach and spread through my whole body. "No," I whispered. Leo moved beside me, so I fixed his blanket.

Tessa was a likely aunt. Her brother's sperm had been stored at my clinic. My son was not Brett's. Gabriel Locke had to be Leo's father.

I opened Tessa's profile again. Gabriel would think I was after his money. Tessa might think the same thing. I typed a message, deleted it, and started over three times.

Finally, I wrote:

I think there was a mistake at Brightwater Fertility. I think my son is your brother's. I am not asking for anything. I just need the truth.

I pressed send before I could change my mind.

One word appeared under the message within minutes.

Read.

No reply came. I waited one hour, then another. By midnight, the message still sat there with no answer.

I lay next to the drawer and watched the window until the sky turned gray.

At seven in the morning, someone pounded on the apartment door.

Leo woke up and started screaming. Rosa was still asleep in her bedroom. The pounding started again, even harder.

I picked Leo up, wrapped his blanket around him, and walked quietly to the door. Through the peephole, I saw a tall man in a dark overcoat. Several men in suits stood behind him in the narrow hallway.

I kept the chain on the door. "Who is it?"

"I am here to see Hannah Ashcroft." His voice was low and rough.

My mouth went dry. "Who are you?"

He stepped closer to the door. "My name is Gabriel Locke."