CHAPTER 2 — "Mama?"
CHAPTER 2 — "Mama?"
“Mama?”
The word was barely louder than the rain dripping through the cracks in the overpass.
Yet it shattered the world.
Emiliana dropped the crushed white roses.
They hit the mud without a sound.
For one impossible heartbeat she simply stared, her eyes refusing to believe what they were seeing. The little face beneath the cardboard was thinner than she remembered, cheeks hollow, lips dry and cracked, but the eyes...
Those eyes.
The same warm hazel eyes that had followed her around the kitchen every morning asking for pancakes shaped like stars.
"My baby..."
She collapsed to her knees.
The child crawled out from beneath the cardboard shelter, trembling, wearing clothes several sizes too large. Dirt covered every inch of exposed skin.
Behind him, another tiny figure slowly emerged.
His twin sister.
Her hair had been crudely chopped with scissors. One sleeve of her sweater was tied into a knot because it had torn completely open.
For three endless years...
They had been alive.
Emiliana threw her arms around both children with a cry that echoed beneath the bridge.
The twins clung to her so tightly their little fingers turned white.
"Mama..."
"We knew you'd come."
"I told Noah you'd find us."
"I told him every night."
I couldn't breathe.
I touched my son's shoulder with shaking fingertips.
Warm.
Alive.
His heartbeat fluttered against my palm.
No marble.
No coffin.
No memory.
A living child.
Then both children suddenly stiffened.
Their terrified eyes darted toward the darkness behind the concrete pillar.
"She's coming," my daughter whispered.
"Hide."
Before I could react, footsteps echoed through the tunnel.
Slow.
Confident.
A woman in her fifties appeared carrying two plastic grocery bags.
The moment she saw us embracing the children, every ounce of color drained from her face.
She turned to run.
"Stop!"
I sprinted after her.
She made it only twenty feet before slipping in the mud.
When I grabbed her arm, she screamed so loudly pigeons exploded from the bridge above.
"I didn't hurt them!" she cried before I had spoken a single word.
"I swear I didn't!"
The words froze me.
Only guilty people defend themselves before accusations.
"Who are you?" I demanded.
"My name is Rosa."
"I only fed them."
"They told me someday their parents would come."
She looked at the twins and began crying.
"I knew today would happen."
Emiliana stood, still holding both children.
"Then tell me," she whispered.
"Who stole them?"
Rosa covered her face.
"I'll be dead."
"If I tell you..."
"They'll kill me."
My voice became ice.
"No one is touching you again."
She looked at the expensive suit I was wearing.
Then at the line of black SUVs beginning to flood into the vacant lot.
Our security team.
They had tracked my emergency signal.
More than a dozen former military officers surrounded the bridge within seconds.
Only then did Rosa finally believe us.
She sank onto an overturned bucket.
"It wasn't supposed to happen like this."
"The crash was real."
"But your children were never inside the car."
Every muscle in my body locked.
"What?"
She nodded through tears.
"The SUV exploded."
"But before the accident..."
"A man switched the children."
Emiliana nearly collapsed again.
"Who?"
Rosa hesitated.
"He wore an expensive navy suit."
"He had a gold watch."
My stomach twisted.
No.
Please...
Not him.
"He called another man 'Doctor.'"
"They put two other children into the vehicle."
The entire world seemed to tilt.
Two...
Other...
Children.
Those tiny coffins...
Those funerals...
Those graves...
Belonged to someone else's children.
Emiliana covered her mouth, horror replacing joy.
"Oh God..."
Those children had parents too.
Parents who still believed their sons and daughters were missing.
Rosa continued.
"I was working as a cleaner at a private clinic."
"I heard them talking."
"They said the twins were worth more alive than dead."
"Worth..."
She looked at me with frightened eyes.
"...hundreds of millions."
I felt sick.
"They said if the heirs disappeared..."
"...the uncle would control everything."
My phone rang.
The screen flashed one name.
Daniel.
My younger brother.
The same man who had comforted us at the funeral.
The same man wearing our father's gold watch.
He called three times in a row.
I answered without speaking.
His calm voice flowed through the speaker.
"Brother."
"I heard you visited the cemetery."
"I hope you're holding up."
I stared at my living children standing only feet away.
For several seconds, I said nothing.
Then my son quietly tugged my sleeve.
"Daddy..."
I looked down.
He reached into his torn sweater pocket.
"I kept this."
He unfolded a faded piece of paper.
It was a family photograph.
The four of us.
Taken the week before the so-called accident.
Across the back, written in childish handwriting, were six words that nearly stopped my heart.
If Uncle Daniel comes, don't trust him.
Silence filled the bridge.
On the phone, Daniel laughed softly.
"Brother?"
"You still there?"
I slowly lifted my eyes toward the highway above.
Cars rushed overhead, completely unaware that beneath their wheels, a dead family had just come back to life.
My grip tightened around the phone.
For the first time in three years...
May you like
I wasn't speaking to my grieving brother.
I was speaking to the man who had stolen my children.
