I had secretly placed cameras on my paralyzed twin daughters to expose the impoverished new maid due to suspicions about her paternity… but the footage revealed my wife’s “accident.” Everything came as a devastating blow that paralyzed my mind…

Noah almost laughed. It came out bitter instead. “So I paid millions to be told maybe grief was stronger than the treatment.”

“I’m telling you the body is not separate from the mind,” Kaplan replied. “And children do not heal on our timetable.”

Upstairs, after the doctor left, Noah paused outside the twins’ bedroom.

The door was open a crack.

He could hear Amara inside, reading softly.

Noah should have gone in. He should have kissed the girls goodnight.

Instead he stayed in the hall and listened.

“…and the brave little fox crossed the snow because she knew home was still there even when she couldn’t see it…”

Brave little fox.

Noah froze.

That was Ava’s phrase.

When Lily and Lila were toddlers and afraid of stairs, thunder, strangers, doctor’s offices, haircuts, elevators, Ava used to press her forehead to theirs and say, “You’re my brave little foxes.”

Noah had never once said it himself.

His hand drifted to the doorframe.

A second later Geneva Ashford’s voice cut through the moment from behind him.

“I knew it.”

He turned sharply. His mother stood at the end of the hall in a silk robe, silver hair immaculate, expression sharpened by vindication.

“You brought a stranger into this house,” she said, “and already she’s inside your children’s heads.”

Noah’s jaw clenched. “Not now.”