By 3:15, my marriage was supposed to be legally dead. Instead, my estranged wife walked into my Manhattan office with twin boys she had hidden from me for three years, and both of them had my dark hair, my steel-gray eyes, and enough of my face to make the unsigned divorce papers between us suddenly meaningless.

The fireplace crackled loudly, sending a shower of orange sparks up the chimney.

Tobias stood frozen in the center of the room, his bourbon glass slipping from his fingers and shattering against the hardwood floor. Amber liquid and sharp shards of glass spread across the wood, but neither of them looked down.

"She... she told you to abort them?" Tobias breathed, his voice barely audible over the roaring wind outside.

"She said you agreed," Elena whispered, tears finally overflowing her eyes, spilling down her cheeks in hot, bitter tracks. "She had a document signed with your electronic signature. A consent form for a medical procedure at a private facility in Upper Manhattan. She told me you left the country for three weeks because you couldn't bear to look at me while it was done."

Tobias felt a cold, terrifying numbness spread through his limbs. Three years ago, he had gone to London for an emergency restructuring of Marrow Holdings’ European assets. His mother had managed his schedule, his personal mail, and his private security. He had called Elena fifty times from London—and every single call had gone straight to a disconnected operator. He had assumed she had blocked him, changed her number, and walked away because she hated him for what he had said about children.

"I didn't sign anything," Tobias choked out, sinking to his knees among the shattered glass, ignoring the sharp edges biting into his palms. "Elena, I swear to you on my life... on my soul... I never signed anything. I didn't even know you were pregnant."

Elena looked down at him, her chest heaving as she fought for breath. "She showed me the signature, Tobias. It was your handwriting. Your personal seal."

"She had my power of attorney while I was in London!" Tobias roared, his eyes bloodshot, tears streaming down his face as he looked up at her. "She had access to my digital encryption keys! I was in England! I was drinking myself to death in a hotel room in Mayfair because I thought you had abandoned me!"

Elena collapsed onto her knees beside him, her hands trembling as she reached out, hesitating for a fraction of a second before grabbing his bloody palms, pulling them away from the glass.

"You... you didn't know?" she sobbed.

"I didn't know," Tobias wept, pressing his forehead against her shoulder, his massive frame shaking with the agonizing grief of three stolen years. "I swear to God, Elena... I didn't know. I would have died for them. I would have died for you."

Noah and Leo stirred on the sofa.

Noah rubbed his eyes with his small fists, sitting up and looking over the edge of the blanket. He saw his mother kneeling on the floor, weeping, holding the hands of the large, scary man with gray eyes who was also crying.

Noah slid off the sofa, clutching his stuffed elephant, and walked slowly across the rug.

He stopped two feet away from Tobias.

"Don't cry, Daddy," Noah said quietly, holding out the stuffed elephant. "Ellie makes it better."

Tobias lifted his head, his face wet with tears, his breath catching in his throat. He looked at his son—at the little boy who was offering him his most prized possession to comfort a man he had met six hours ago.