“Also, I’ve already agreed to let Stephen call Tessa ‘Mom.’ She looks like Evie; maybe it will ease his longing for his mother.”
I almost laughed.
For seven years, Stephen had never once called me ‘Mom.’ And Carlos had never corrected him.
It turned out that the one thing I had longed for the most—all it took to receive it was a face that resembled Evie’s.
I let out a soft, bitter chuckle. “There’s no need. Once I leave, I’ll have nothing to do with the Davis family anymore. My adoptive mother has nothing to do with you, President Davis. And as for Stephen calling someone ‘Mom,’ that’s none of my concern.”
Carlos parted his lips as if to speak, but before he could, Tessa came running over, her face drained of color.
In her trembling hands, she clutched a black-and-white photo.
It was a picture of her, but her face had been defaced with lipstick, the features scribbled over until they were unrecognizable.
And scrawled across it, in bold, jagged letters, ‘Die.’
The image was unsettling, downright terrifying.
Tessa trembled, then threw herself into Carlos’s arms, her sobs trembling through the air.