All Chapters of MY LONG LOST LOVE: Chapter 41 - Chapter 50

CHAPTER 40The Boy at the DoorMIYAKAFor several seconds, nobody moved.The voice on the other side of the door seemed to hang in the room long after the last word had disappeared.Miyaka... it's me.My entire body had gone cold.I knew that voice.Not because I had heard it recently.Because some part of me had been carrying it for years.A voice from a memory I wasn't supposed to have.A little boy beneath the mango tree.A small hand wrapped around mine.A wooden horse resting against his knee.And those eyes.Those strange, sad eyes that had always felt familiar even though I had never been able to remember whose they were.My mother stood behind me.She was trembling.I could hear her breathing.Short.Uneven.Terrified."Mom?"She didn't answer.Her eyes remained fixed on the door.That frightened me more than the voice had.Because my mother had spent years running from something.And now, whatever she had been running from had come looking for us.Moises moved in front of me.

CHAPTER 42The Man Beneath the Mango TreeMIYAKAI knew that voice.I had spent half my life believing I would never hear it again.My father's voice.The sound of it moved through me differently than I expected. There was no immediate relief. No sudden happiness. No instinctive rush toward the man waiting beneath the mango tree.There was only disbelief.And then anger.A deep, almost physical anger that seemed to rise from somewhere beneath all the years I had spent grieving him.My father was supposed to be gone.Not simply missing.Not secretly waiting.Gone.That was the story I had been given.The story my mother had allowed me to believe.The story everyone had protected.And now someone was standing beneath the tree where my childhood had begun, calling me sweetheart as if nothing had happened.My hand tightened around Moises's.He immediately looked down at our joined hands.Then back at me.He didn't say anything.He didn't need to.I could feel the question in his silence.

CHAPTER 44The Boy Named LucianMIYAKAI stared at the name carved into the mango tree.LUCIAN.The letters looked fresh.Too fresh.Tiny pieces of bark still clung to the edges of the carving, and beneath the name, the wood was darker where someone had pressed a blade into it.I reached toward it.Moises caught my wrist."Don't."I looked at him.His expression wasn't the usual controlled calm I had become accustomed to seeing.He was afraid.Not for himself.For me."What?"He released my wrist slowly."Don't touch it.""Why?""I don't know."His answer was honest.That scared me more than anything else.Moises always seemed to have an answer.Even when he didn't tell me everything, he usually knew which direction danger was coming from.Now he was staring at one name as though it had opened a door inside his memory that he desperately wanted to keep closed."Who is Lucian?"He didn't answer.I looked at my father.He was standing several feet away, his face drained of color."Who i

CHAPTER 46The Truth Beneath My NameMIYAKAThe man's voice remained inside the tunnel long after the cassette stopped playing.I've been waiting for you to remember that you're mine.I couldn't move.I couldn't breathe properly.For several seconds, all I could hear was the faint humming of the cassette player and the uneven sound of my own breathing. My fingers were still wrapped around the edge of the metal box, but I had stopped feeling the coldness of it. My entire body felt strangely distant, as though I were standing somewhere outside myself, watching another woman receive the news that she wasn't who she believed she was.I looked at my mother.She wasn't looking at me.That frightened me more than anything the recording had said.My mother had spent years being the strongest person in my childhood memories. Even when I was young, I remembered her as someone who could make fear disappear simply by holding my hand. She had always known what to say when thunderstorms frightened

CHAPTER 48The Ones Who Found UsMIYAKAThe doors slammed shut one after another.The sound traveled through the underground passage like a warning.One.Then another.Then another.Then silence.I stood frozen.The man's words kept repeating inside my head.They finally found you.My fingers were still wrapped around Moises's hand, but I could barely feel them anymore.I looked behind me.The tunnel we had entered through was sealed.The darkness ahead of us was no longer empty.There were sounds coming from somewhere beyond the walls.Footsteps.Several of them.Slow.Controlled.Whoever was coming wasn't rushing.They didn't need to.They knew we had nowhere to go.My mother moved closer to me."Don't move."Her voice was barely a whisper.I looked at her."You know who they are."She didn't answer."Mom."Her eyes remained fixed on the darkness."Please."Finally, she looked at me."They're the people I've been running from."My chest tightened."For how long?"She swallowed."Sin