Chapter 111

"Where is Aurora? Please, tell me she is alive." Mr. Jeff's voice trembled as he spoke.I stared at him, stunned. "I do not understand what is going on, but I have no idea who Aurora is."His eyes searched my face. "Your mother. Where is she?"I glanced at Mason, who looked just as perplexed as I felt. "My mother's name is not Aurora.""I'm sorry for asking this, but can you show me a picture of your mother?"At this point, I had no idea what was happening, but I was too invested not to find out.I unlocked my phone and went to Nina's page. It took me a minute before I found one of the pictures she'd taken with our mother during one of those extravagant trips they used to go on.I enlarged the picture and held the phone to him. "That's my mother.""Gina," he muttered, recognition washing over his face.The situation had officially gone from strange to serious. "How do you know my mother's name?"He didn't answer. Instead, he walked backwards and slowly lowered himself back onto the co

Chapter 112

Lying in bed that night with Mason, I told him how everything had gone with Mr. Jeff. He said he already knew the test would come back positive."With the striking resemblance to Aurora, and the features you share with your father, the eyes, hair color, even ears. Those are your parents, Mia."I smiled. "I take it Lior isn't the only one who notices things.""Definitely not."He pulled me closer. "How do you feel, knowing your whole life might have been a lie?"I thought about it."Strangely… relieved.""Relieved?""I could tell he wants me as his daughter, Mason. That kind of excitement cannot be faked. All my life I thought I was unwanted. It feels good to find out that was never true. Gina and her husband not being my real parents is a relief, because it makes it easier to heal from everything they did to me."I took a deep breath. "My only fear is my mother. It would break me if she had given me up because she never wanted me.""I doubt that is the case," Mason said. "The woman in

Chapter 113

On the flight to Chicago, Mr. Jeff and I spent most of the time talking. Getting to know each other.He wanted to know everything.What I did for work. Whether I liked it. If I'd gone to college. What I liked doing in my free time. He asked about Lior, his interests, practically everything a grandfather who had just discovered he had a grandson could think of.The more we talked, the more questions he asked about my childhood.And the more answers I gave, the angrier he became.Sometimes he would go completely quiet after I told him something, his jaw tightening before he'd move on to another question.When we landed, a car was already waiting on the tarmac. I gave the driver Gina's address, and forty-five minutes later we were standing in front of what used to be my home.Every awful memory came flooding back the moment I saw the front door.If there had been any other way of getting the answers we needed, I would've gladly taken it.Mr. Jeff noticed the shift in my mood, squeezed my

Chapter 114

After we both managed to pull ourselves together, we went to visit my mother's grave.The cemetery was quiet when we arrived. As we walked between the rows of headstones, I noticed flowers on most of the graves. Some fresh, others already beginning to wilt.My mother's grave was the only one without any.It didn't look like anyone had visited her in a long time. I wasn't surprised.How could Gina do everything she'd done to me and still summon the courage to come here?We stopped in front of the headstone, and I stared at my mother's name. Seeing it there made everything sink in deeper.She was really dead.I had just found her, only to lose her.My father broke down for the second time. This was worse than the tears he'd shed in the car. He crouched beside the grave and cried so hard that I had to kneel beside him, rubbing his back.This time, I didn't cry with him. I comforted him instead.There was something different about his grief now. He had spent years searching for her, proba

Chapter 115

Before we left, my father told Gina that once he was finished with her, being homeless would be the least of her worries. She would beg for death, and death would stay far out of reach.Inside the car, I held the letter tightly against my chest. My mother had done everything within her power to make sure I had a good life.I had been loved before I even took my first breath.If I ever had a daughter, I already knew what I would name her.Aurora.Staring down at the letter, an unpleasant thought crept in. Nina had given me this letter, and Gina, knowing her the way I did, would figure out exactly who had done it.And Nina must have known that before she gave it to me.Why had she risked it?"Can you please take me back," I told my father. "There is one more thing I need to do."He asked the driver to turn around.When we pulled up, exactly as I feared, Nina was on the floor while her mother and father struck her without mercy.She was not even fighting back. It looked almost as if she

Chapter 116

When we arrived in France, I was surprised by the house.It was tucked into a quiet, middle-class neighborhood and wasn't particularly huge. Compared to Dad's house in Chicago, it was almost modest, definitely not the kind of place I imagined a man like him buying.He caught the question on my face before I even asked it, laughed, and explained."Your mother made us buy it. She was tired of the big houses and all the…" He paused, chuckling. "What did she call it? The bling-bling.""She said she couldn't change who I was, but France was supposed to be where she could escape from my world." His smile softened. "She loved it here."Walking through the front door, I understood why he had kept the house.It felt like she still lived there.There were traces of my mother everywhere. Her clothes were still in the closet. Her jewelry, shoes, and other belongings remained exactly where she had left them. Even the walls looked like they hadn't been repainted since she was here.It was almost as