They were planning to steal my son!
The bile in my throat rose so fast I nearly choked on it. I flipped through the pages, hoping this was some cruel mistake. But every line was deliberate.
Zach’s signature, the request for primary physical custody, and a clause buried halfway through: Co-guardianship requested with Ms. Celine Lovelet, long-term partner and medically authorized caretaker.
“Caretaker?” I laughed bitterly.
She was a homewrecker in heels, not a damn nurse. The front doorbell rang again. For a second, I thought it might be Vega, but when I peeked through the peephole, it wasn’t him.
It was Neil Vega—the man I hadn’t seen for years.
My heart hammered so hard I thought Liam might hear it upstairs. I opened the door on trembling feet. Neil stood in the porch light, coat drenched from the rain, face pale and firm. He looked brittle—like a storm about to break.
“Arianne.”
I wanted to shut the door. Bolt it. Pretend he’d never shown up. But something clicked—fear, curiosity, the need for answers. I let him in but he stayed in the threshold.
“What brings you here, detective?”
He cleared his throat. “I didn’t want you to find out this way.”