Chapter 16
I pressed both hands against the table.
“My mother wasn’t my mother,” I whispered.
Victor’s answer came immediately.
“Elena raised you. She protected you. Whatever else we discover, do not erase that.”
The gentleness in his voice surprised me.
I looked toward Lily, sleeping beneath the blanket.
For eight months, I had lived in fear that I was failing her.
I could not afford the right food, the safest apartment, or the kind of medical care other parents took for granted. Yet every decision I made began and ended with her.
If someone told Lily one day that blood mattered more than the nights I stayed awake beside her, the songs I sang, the sacrifices I made—
I would want her to know better.
“My mother was my mother,” I said.
Victor nodded.
“Yes.”
“But she was hiding who I was.”
“Yes.”
“And you think I may be Sofia’s child.”
His eyes held mine.
“I think Elena risked her life to keep a child hidden. I think my father lied about my niece’s death. And I think that child was called Annie.”
The doctor cleared his throat from beside the sofa.
We turned.
Lily was awake.
Her fever-bright eyes looked between us.
Then she smiled.
A small, sleepy smile.
I went to her immediately and lifted her into my arms.
She rested her cheek against my shoulder.
For a few moments, everything else disappeared.
Victor watched us.
There was grief in his face.
And hope.
Both frightened me.
May you like
“You should rest,” he said. “There are guest rooms on this level.”
“I’m not staying in a bunker beneath your house.”
