Her gaze softened for just a second.
“My brother. Noah.”
Noah stirred and cried softly, as if apologizing for existing. Emma rocked him instinctively. There was no milk. No blanket. No food.
Just her.
“Our mom left three days ago,” Emma said flatly, reciting facts without emotion. “She said she’d come back. She didn’t.”
Michael felt the world split in two.
He had known sadness. But this child knew hunger.
And real hunger makes sadness a luxury.
“Are you… hungry?” he asked.
Her eyes dropped instantly—by instinct—to the pocket of his jacket where a silk handkerchief peeked out. Not greed. Need.
Then she looked away, ashamed of herself.
Michael stood slowly. His suit cost more than many people earned in a year, and suddenly it felt obscene.
He called his driver.
“Bring the car here. Now.”
He turned back to her.
“Emma, you can’t stay here. It’s not safe.”
She looked around at the collapsing walls, the damp wood, the open sky above the roof.
“I know,” she said honestly. “But we don’t have anywhere else.”
The car rolled closer. Emma stiffened, ready to run with the baby if she had to.
Michael raised his hands in surrender.