"He thought he had lost everything. But one child would change everything."
The automatic doors of the hospital slid open, and every head in the lobby lifted at once.
People rarely stared at Kieran D'Angelo.
They usually lowered their eyes.
But today…
they stared because they did not recognize him.
His white shirt was wrinkled, streaked with dried blood.
His black coat carried dust, smoke, and a faint charcoal smell that clung to him like a shadow.
His usually sharp hair hung over his forehead in disordered waves, and dark circles bruised the skin beneath his eyes.
He didn't walk with his usual predatory confidence.
He walked like a man whose soul had been scraped out of him.
Whispers followed him down the hall.
"Is that really Mr. D'Angelo…?"
"He looks… terrible."
"No—he looks broken."
"What happened to him?"
He heard nothing.
He saw nothing.
He was moving on instinct alone.
Just steps away from the elevator, he collided gently with someone—a soft thud of a small body against his.
A woman stumbled backward, nearly tripping over her own shoes.
Messy blonde hair framed her startled face. Round glasses slid down the bridge of her nose, and bright blue eyes blinked rapidly behind the lenses.
"Oh—! I'm so—"
She didn't finish because Kieran's hand shot out, catching her before she hit the floor. His grip was firm but absentminded, like his reflexes worked while his mind didn't.
"Be more careful," he murmured.
His voice was low, raw, as if scraped from gravel.
The woman straightened herself, cheeks flushed.
"Wait—you're… Mr. D'Angelo, right? I'm Adrien's assigned nurse. I was actually going to page you. We've been trying to—"
But he was already walking past her.
Not out of arrogance.
Out of grief so deep it swallowed everything else.
Kieran pushed open the office door.
The doctor was waiting.
His expression was tense — too tense.
"Mr. D'Angelo… please sit."
"I'm not sitting."
The doctor swallowed.
"Your blood… is a perfect match for the boy."
Kieran didn't react.
"Not just for donation," the doctor added quietly. "For… genetics."
The world stopped.
Kieran blinked once.
Slowly.
Not understanding.
Not wanting to understand.
"What do you mean," he said, voice dropping into a deadly softness, "genetics."
The doctor took a breath.
"Mr. D'Angelo… you and the child share the same rare congenital heart defect. The same blood type. The same biochemical markers. We ran… a confirmation test."
Silence stretched.
Heavy. Suffocating.
The doctor's next words detonated in the air between them:
"Adrien is your biological son."
Kieran's chest tightened — so violently his hand twitched toward it.
For a second, he thought he might collapse.
His voice was barely audible.
"…Where is he."
The doctor nodded immediately. "Follow me."
⸻
The hallway to the pediatric ward felt endless.
Kieran's steps slowed the closer they got.
His breathing shook — the way it did when he fought tears.
But he didn't fight this time.
He couldn't.
The doctor pushed open a door.
A soft, weak little voice drifted out.
"Mummy…?
Mummy… where are you…?"
Kieran's vision blurred instantly.
He froze in the doorway.
Because there — sitting up weakly in a hospital bed, small hands clutching the blanket —
was his childhood face staring right at him.
Big blue eyes.
Messy dark curls.
"…mummy?"
Kieran's heart cracked clean in half.
The child blinked when he realized no mother stood in the doorway. His little brows pinched, confused. He stared harder at Kieran, squinting as if pulling a distant memory out of fog.
"I… remember you," he whispered, voice hoarse from crying.
Tears slipped down Kieran's face before he could stop them.
Kieran staggered in.
Just one step.
Then another.
He knelt slowly beside the bed, eyes locked on the tiny face he had unknowingly created.
Did Aurielle know Adrien was his son? If she knew why did she hide it away from him?
"I failed you," he whispered.
His voice broke.
"I failed your mother too."
Adrien's brows furrowed gently.
"Why are you crying…?" he whispered. "I was crying too. I miss my mummy."
Something inside Kieran shattered completely.
He reached out — carefully — and cupped Adrien's cheek with a tenderness he didn't know he was capable of.
"I couldn't protect her," he choked. "I should have. I should have been there."
Adrien stared at him, confused, innocent.
He leaned forward — slowly, hesitantly — and touched Kieran's wet cheek with his tiny hand.
"Don't cry…" he whispered. "Please don't cry."
Kieran couldn't stop.
He gathered the boy into his arms — gently but desperately — holding him like something precious and fragile.
Adrien's small body stiffened in surprise…
…then melted into the hug.
Kieran buried his face in the child's shoulder.
His voice trembled against the boy's hair:
"I'm your father."
Adrien froze.
His blue eyes—Kieran's eyes—went wide. Then his face crumpled in confusion and disbelief.
"No," he whispered, shaking his head. "You're not my daddy. My mummy told me I came out from inside her heart."
Kieran let out a sound between a sob and a laugh — broken, aching, full of love he never got the chance to give.
"You are special," he whispered, brushing Adrian's hair back. "And you did come from her heart. But you came from me too."
Adrien looked confused.
Hurt.
He whispered,
"If you're my daddy… why weren't you with my mummy? Where have you been?"
Kieran's breath caught.
There were a thousand answers.
And none.
He wiped a tear from the child's cheek with his thumb.
"I don't know if I can ever make it up to you," he whispered. "But I will try. From now on… I won't fail you again."
Adrien slowly wrapped his tiny arms around Kieran's neck.
Rested his cheek against Kieran's chest.
A whisper.
"I miss mummy…"
Kieran closed his eyes, pain slicing through him.
"Me too," he breathed.
Kieran held his son—the last living piece of Aurielle—against his heart and felt something he hadn't felt in two days:
A reason to breathe.
The room was quiet—
Except for two heartbeats.
One broken.
One fragile.
But the fragility ignited something feral in him. Enough of waiting. Enough of weakness. Enough of letting the man who had stolen everything—Jason—walk free.
It was time.
Time to find Jason. Time to make him pay.
And little did Kieran know… the truth about his wife was far from over.