William
Caden
I stared at the message for a long time.
*I'd very much like to speak with my son.*
His son.
I was somebody's son in a way that had never once applied to Romano — not really, not in any sense that felt true rather than documented. Romano had claimed me, kept me, competed with me, tried to dismantle me from the inside out, and written mine regardless at the bottom of a paternity test he'd buried for twenty-three years.
William Ashford had texted me my son in a single line and it landed somewhere Romano's forty-two years of ownership never had.
"Caden." Aria's voice, quiet. "Breathe."
I breathed.
"He called you his son," she said.
"Yes," I said.
"He already knows," she said. "Eleanor told him everything. He processed it and he picked up his phone and he called you hi
