“She’s not our mom,” he said flatly.
Victor frowned. “What are your names?”
“I’m Emma,” the girl said, sitting straighter. “And this is my brother, Noah. We’re five.”
Victor sat beside them, ignoring the uneasy glances from his security team.
“Are you waiting for someone else? Your dad?”
Emma shook her head slowly.
Noah reached into his pocket and pulled out a small, wrinkled photograph protected in plastic. It showed a smiling man, covered in grease, holding the twins as babies.
“Our dad went to heaven two months ago,” Noah whispered. “He fell at work. Vanessa said she’d take us to the beach… but she told us to wait here. She didn’t come back.”
Victor took the photo carefully.
The moment he saw the man’s face, everything around him stopped.
He knew that face.
Eight years earlier, on a deserted highway near the border, Victor’s armored SUV had been ambushed. The vehicle flipped, caught fire. He had three bullets in his body, trapped inside, seconds from death.
A young mechanic had run into the gunfire, smashed the window with a metal bar, and dragged him out moments before the explosion.
Days later, Victor had offered him a fortune.
The man refused.
He asked for only one thing: