HIS HIDDEN SON

📖 Chapter 8 – A Boy’s Questions

Liam sat cross-legged on the living room rug, his crayons scattered around him. He pressed a green one to paper, drawing a crooked dinosaur, though his eyes kept flicking to the closed door of his mother’s room.

He could tell she’d been crying again.

She always tried to hide it—smiling at him, making silly faces, tucking him in with extra kisses. But Liam was smart. Smarter than most kids in his class, at least that’s what his teacher said. He noticed things.

And lately, there was one thing he noticed more than anything else.

The man.

Tall. Serious. His voice deep like the rumble of thunder before a storm. He showed up at the park. At the diner. Once, Liam had woken in the night and seen his shadow by the window before Mama pulled the curtains tight.

Liam chewed on his lip. Mama called him Ethan. She always looked upset when he came. But Liam wasn’t scared of him. Not exactly.

If anything, there was something… familiar.

---

That weekend, they were walking home from the grocery store when it happened again. Ethan’s car—a sleek, shiny black one Liam had only ever seen in magazines—pulled up beside them.

“Amara,” Ethan called, lowering the window.

Mama stiffened, her hand tightening around Liam’s. “Not now,” she said sharply.

But Ethan’s eyes weren’t on Mama this time. They were on him.

“Hey there,” Ethan said, voice softer than Liam had ever heard it. “Do you like cars?”

Liam blinked up at him, then nodded slowly. “That one looks like a spaceship.”

Ethan’s lips twitched, almost a smile. “It’s fast. Want to sit inside?”

Mama tugged Liam closer. “Absolutely not.”

“But—” Liam started, then stopped when he saw the warning in her eyes.

Ethan leaned out further, his gaze steady on Mama. “I’m not a stranger. He deserves to know me.”

Liam’s heart thudded. He didn’t fully understand what they were fighting about, but he knew it had something to do with him.

Later that night, while Mama folded laundry, Liam crawled onto the couch beside her.

“Mama,” he said carefully, “is Ethan… my dad?”

The shirt slipped from her hands. For a moment, she just stared at him, her face pale. “Why would you ask that?”

Liam shrugged, fiddling with his fingers. “Because he looks at me like he knows me. And you always look sad after he leaves.” He hesitated. “And… I’ve never had a dad.”

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed hard. She pulled him into her arms, holding him so tightly he could barely breathe.

“You have me,” she whispered fiercely into his hair. “That’s all you need.”

But Liam didn’t miss the tremor in her voice.

And for the first time, he wondered if Mama was afraid of losing him.

---

That night, as he drifted to sleep, Liam dreamed of two worlds: one where it was just him and Mama against everything, and another where Ethan’s shadow loomed larger and larger, pulling them somewhere he couldn’t see.

Amara sat at the edge of Liam’s bed, watching his small chest rise and fall in sleep. His earlier words echoed in her mind like a ghost she couldn’t chase away.

Is Ethan my dad?

Her hands trembled as she brushed his hair back. She had spent years preparing for this—knowing someday Liam would ask. But she hadn’t expected it so soon. Not now. Not when Ethan was circling like a hawk.

Her throat ached. She wanted to give Liam the truth, to explain everything. But the truth came with chains—chains that tied them to Ethan Kane’s world, a world that would consume them both.

She rose quietly, slipping into the living room. Her phone sat on the counter, Ethan’s number glowing from where he had texted earlier: Have you thought about my offer?

Amara gripped the phone until her knuckles turned white, then hurled it onto the couch.

“I won’t let you take him from me,” she whispered into the silence.

But deep down, she feared it wasn’t her choice anymore.

---

Across town, Ethan stood in his penthouse office, the city lights stretching endlessly beneath him. His tie hung loose, his drink untouched.

He had seen it—just a flicker—but it had been there in Liam’s eyes. Recognition. Connection.

The boy was his. Not just in blood, but in spirit.

And the thought of all the years he’d lost, stolen from him by Amara’s silence, burned like acid in his chest.

His assistant had called twice, reminding him of meetings. He’d ignored both. For the first time in years, Ethan Kane’s empire wasn’t enough to fill him.

He wanted his son.

No, he needed his son.

But he also wanted Amara—her fire, her defiance, the way she still looked at him like he wasn’t untouchable. It infuriated him. It intoxicated him.

She thought he was only after control. She didn’t see the truth: he wasn’t offering her a contract out of convenience. He was offering her a lifeline—one that tied her fate to his.

Ethan set his glass down with a sharp clink.

If she thought she could run from him, she was wrong. He had clawed his way to the top by never letting anything slip through his fingers.

And he wasn’t about to start now.

---

Back in her apartment, Amara lay awake long into the night, her heart aching with a truth she couldn’t say aloud.

She was losing ground. With Liam’s questions. With Ethan’s persistence. With her own fear whispering that maybe—just maybe—her son deserved to know his father.

But if Ethan Kane had taught her anything, it was that everything came with a price.

And she wasn’t sure she could pay it