All Chapters of In His World : Chapter 11 - Chapter 20

Adrian POV The hospital smelled like disinfectant and I hated it the moment we walked through the doors, hated the fluorescent lights and the beeping machines and the nurses who looked at us with sympathy like they already knew how this was going to end. Charlotte met us in the hallway outside my father's room and her face was red from crying. "You're here." "How is he?" "Worse, he's asking for you, wants to talk to you alone." She looked at Elena. "Just family right now." "I'll wait out here," Elena said and sat down in one of the plastic chairs lining the wall. "Take your time." I nodded and followed Charlotte into the room where my father was lying in bed hooked up to more machines than I could count, his skin gray and his breathing labored, and James was standing by the window with his arms crossed looking like he'd rather be anywhere else. "Adrian's here," Charlotte said softly. My father's eyes opened and he looked at me and for a second I saw recognition there be

Adrian POVMorning came but I hadn't slept and I knew Elena hadn't either because I'd heard her moving around in her room all night, the same way she'd probably heard me pacing in mine.I got up and showered and got dressed and avoided looking at myself in the mirror because I didn't want to see my father's face staring back at me, didn't want to think about whether Elena had that same face too.When I came out of my room, Elena was in the kitchen making coffee but she didn't look at me when I walked in, just kept her eyes on the counter like it was the most interesting thing she'd ever seen."Coffee?" she asked quietly."Yes."She poured a cup and set it on the counter without handing it to me, keeping as much distance between us as possible, and I picked it up and went to sit in the living room because being in the same room as her was too hard right now.I could feel her watching me but when I glanced back she was looking away again and we stayed like that for an hour, in different

Adrian POVI picked up the paper from where Elena had dropped it and my hands were shaking as I read through the medical terminology until I got to the results section at the bottom."Not related. 0% genetic match."The words blurred and I had to read them again to make sure I wasn't seeing things, wasn't imagining what I wanted to see, but they were still there clear as day."Not related," I said out loud."What?" Elena's voice was barely a whisper."We're not related, the DNA test shows 0% genetic match, we're not siblings." I looked up at her and she was crying. "Elena, we're okay."She made a sound that was half laugh half sob and I pulled her into my arms and held her while she cried into my chest, and I realized I was crying too because the relief was so intense it hurt."We're okay," I said again because I needed to hear it, needed to make it real. "We're okay, you're not my sister, we're not related, we're okay."Elena pulled back slightly and looked up at me with tears stream

Adrian POVWe spent the rest of the day at Elena's flat going through everything we could find about Grace and by the evening we had enough to piece together the story my father had spent his whole life running from.Grace Williams. Born 1965. Died 1995 in a car accident on the M25 on a rainy Tuesday night. My father would have been thirty years old and she would have been thirty when she died and every single photo we found of her looked exactly like Elena.Not similar. Not close. Exactly.Same face, same dark hair, same eyes that seemed to look right through you, and I sat there on Elena's sofa surrounded by printed photos and old newspaper clippings and felt the ground shift beneath everything I thought I knew about my father."He was trying to replace her," I said and the words came out flat because saying it out loud made it real. "Through all of you, through Grace and Sophia and Elena and Lily, he was trying to replace her."Elena sat next to me looking at the photos spread acro

**Adrian POV** Charlotte sat on the couch with her hands wrapped around a glass of water that Elena had given her but she wasn't drinking it, just holding it and staring at the floor while her whole body shook like she was trying to keep something locked inside and failing. I sat across from her and Elena was next to me and the apartment was so quiet I could hear the clock ticking somewhere in the kitchen, and I waited because pushing Charlotte when she was like this never worked. "Take your time," Elena said softly. Charlotte looked up at her and something in her expression shifted like she was grateful someone was being gentle with her. "I was here," she said and her voice came out thin and broken. "The night Sophia died I was here in this apartment." I went completely still because Charlotte had never mentioned being here that night, not once in two years, and I'd never thought to ask because I thought it was just me who'd come home to find Sophia gone. "What do you mean