“At a family dinner, I said, “I’m about to give birth.” My parents sneered, “Call a cab. We’re busy.” I drove myself to the ER in unbearable pain. A week later, my mom showed up at my door and said, “Let me see the baby.”

My mother stepped closer. “Ava, please. Just hand him over.”

Every muscle in my body went rigid. “Him?”

Noah shut his eyes.

“They never told me it was a boy,” I whispered.

Silence.

I stepped backward into the house. “You knew.”

“Ava, listen to me,” Noah said, moving quickly now. “Your son is alive.”

The room spun.

Alive.

I grabbed the doorknob to steady myself. “Where is he?”

Noah glanced at my mother, and I understood something horrifying: he was afraid of her.

“He was never meant to stay in that hospital,” he said. “The delivery wasn’t an emergency. It was arranged.”

My mother lunged for the door. I slammed it, catching her hand in the frame hard enough to make her scream. Noah pounded on the wood from outside.

“Ava! Open the door if you want the truth!”

I locked it and backed away, shaking. Then my phone buzzed on the kitchen counter.

Unknown number.

A woman whispered, “If they found you first, you’re already out of time. Check the lining of the diaper bag they sent home with you. Do not trust your mother.”

The line went dead.

I tore open the diaper bag. Hidden in the lining was a burner phone, a key, and a folded birth certificate.

Mother: Ava Carter.

Father: Unknown.