All Chapters of I HEARD HIM SAY " DADDY": Chapter 51 - Chapter 60

ANNALISE / LISA I started laughing before I could stop myself. The sound broke out of me suddenly, sharp and unrestrained, echoing far too loudly in the quiet office.It wasn’t the kind of laughter that came from humor. It came from pressure—too much of it—compressed into a single moment with nowhere else to go. Once it escaped, it refused to be pulled back in. I laughed harder, my shoulders lifting slightly as if the movement might justify the sound. Aiden froze. Across the table, the other man—Dave, his lawyer—stared at me with open disbelief. His brows knitted together, his mouth parting slightly as though he was about to ask if I was all right but thought better of it. The two of them exchanged a brief glance, the kind people shared when they silently agreed something had gone wrong. I leaned back in my chair and let the laughter taper off slowly, deliberately, until it softened into a crooked smile. “You know,” I said, the laugh still clinging to my voice even as it

ANNALISE/ LISA When I left the office, I did not give myself permission to pause, because I knew that if I stopped for even a moment, everything I had been holding back would come crashing down in a way I could not control. I walked out with my head held high, my steps steady, and my face composed, even though my chest felt tight and my thoughts were loud and chaotic. The drive home passed in silence, but it was not a peaceful silence. It was the kind that pressed against my ears and forced me inward, where memories, doubts, and unspoken fears circled relentlessly. My hands remained firm on the steering wheel, yet my fingers ached from how tightly I held it, as though loosening my grip would cause me to fall apart entirely. By the time I reached home, my body felt exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical tiredness. It was the exhaustion of someone who had been bracing herself for far too long. When I opened the door, the sound of voices immediately filled the space,

ANNALISE / LISA I stared at the message again, my eyes tracing the words as though they might rearrange themselves into something less threatening if I looked long enough. The screen felt intrusive in the dim quiet of the room, glowing with an insistence that made my pulse quicken. I closed the message slowly, deliberately, but the tension it stirred did not fade with the darkened screen. Someone wanted to meet me, but who was it? The question of who lingered heavily in my mind, pressing against thoughts I had trained myself not to entertain. I tried to reason with myself, to dismiss the unease as paranoia, but my body reacted faster than logic ever could. My shoulders tightened, my breathing shallow as a familiar dread crept in. Sam. The name surfaced before I could stop it, sharp and unwelcome, carrying with it a flood of memories I had spent days suppressing. Sam never needed to announce himself to cause fear. He thrived on uncertainty, on the slow unraveling of peace. If th

AIDEN“Well—” my mother replied almost immediately, her voice slicing through the room before the silence could take root. “I hear Lisa—” She paused, turning her head toward her with deliberate slowness. “That’s what you go by now, right?”I felt the shift before I saw it. The subtle tightening of Lisa’s posture. The way her spine straightened as if she’d been caught off guard, even though the question itself was harmless on the surface. My mother had always been good at that—making the ordinary feel like an interrogation without ever sounding accusatory.“Yes,” Lisa said.My mother smiled, perfectly composed, but her eyes stayed sharp and assessing. That look wasn’t curiosity. It was confirmation. As if she had already drawn her conclusions and was simply ticking off boxes.“Why did you change your name, darling?” she asked.The word darling irritated me more than it should have. It was too familiar, too intimate for someone who had just spent a few days with Lisa’s existence. I watc

EVELYN BLACKWOOD I smiled as Aiden and Lisa left the room, their laughter fading behind them like the gentle trailing notes of a familiar song. There was a lightness in my chest, a warmth I hadn’t felt in far too long. My son… my clever, stubborn, infuriating son… had finally found someone to love. Someone willing to step into his world, into the Blackwood family—and she was a designer too. Talented, poised, confident. She could survive Aiden. That was no small feat. I let my fingers trail over the edge of the polished mahogany table as I sank into the chair, letting satisfaction settle over me like a well-earned cloak. This wedding, this joining… it meant more than love, though love was part of it. It meant family. Legacy. The company. All of it secured. I allowed myself a small, private smile, the kind that didn’t need approval or acknowledgment. A sense of accomplishment that was mine alone. The quiet was broken by the sharp trill of my phone. I glanced at the screen and saw S