Chapter 51

Teresa's POV I stopped counting the hours somewhere around the second night.Time had collapsed into something smaller and more urgent than hours. It moved in heartbeats instead. Kai's heartbeats, measured on the portable monitor Dr. Green had left on the bedside table, its small screen glowing in the dark while I sat beside my son and watched numbers that should not have been allowed to fluctuate the way they did.Seventy-two. Stable enough to breathe.Sixty-one. My hand would find his wrist automatically.Fifty-four. I would reach for the emergency medication and measure the dose with hands that I forced to stay steady through nothing but will.Three days had passed like this.Master Liu had taught me about the heart long before any medical school had. She had taught me that the heart responded to things science could not always measure. Temperature. Touch. Sound. The specific frequency of a voice that a person trusted completely. I had used everything she taught me, combining it w

Chapter 52

Timothy's POV Carson had advised against coming personally.He had said it twice in the car and once more at the edge of the village road, standing beside me with his hands clasped and his expression neutral in the way it became when he disagreed with a decision but had already accepted that the decision was made.I had not responded either time.There were things that photographs could tell you and things that photographs could not. The weight of a moment. The specific quality of a silence. The way a person moved when they thought nobody was watching them and the mask they wore for the world had come completely off.I needed to see the child with my own eyes.We had positioned ourselves behind a dense hedgerow on the far side of the narrow road that ran in front of the cottage. Far enough to be invisible. Close enough that the morning light gave me a clear, unobstructed view of the small front yard and the door that opened onto it.We waited for forty minutes before the door opened.

Chapter 53

Timothy's POV I drove for three hours by myself.Carson had offered to come. Had suggested that arriving with support might be advisable given the circumstances. But I had told him to stay in Dhuran. This was not a situation that required witnesses. This was something I needed to do alone, with the DNA report folded in my jacket pocket and three years of carefully maintained control sitting at the very edge of where I could still manage it.The village looked exactly as it had the first time. Quiet, ordinary, completely indifferent to the fact that it had been hiding my son for three years inside one small cottage at the end of a dirt road.I parked at the edge of the road and walked the rest of the way.The cottage door opened before I reached the gate and Teresa stepped out.She saw me and stopped moving entirely.Every trace of colour left her face in a single moment. Her hand came up and found the doorframe beside her, steadying herself against it, and her eyes locked onto mine

Todos los capítulos de Surrogate for my Ex-Fiancé’s Brother: Capítulo 51 - Capítulo 53

Chapter 51

Chapter 52

Chapter 53