I clenched my fists, barely restraining myself from storming into the room. The air in the hallway felt thick, stifling, and each word I overheard sank deeper into my skin like splinters. Enola’s voice—sharp, cutting—filled the space, her bitterness evident, but it was my father’s quiet response that left a deeper wound.
I’d tried to respect Mirabella’s need for distance, her refusal to let me in. But each day that passed, each time she referred to Nick as her husband, each choice she made to keep our pups under another name, felt like a betrayal. I was their father. My blood ran through their veins, and yet she clung to the lie, to the notion that they were Nick’s, as if she could erase me from their lives with a single stroke.
When I learned that she wanted to submit their names withou
