I walked for miles.
My shoulder throbbed. Tears blurred my vision. Every step took me farther from Jacob.
But I didn’t stop.
I had to get help. I had to find someone who would believe me.
I ended up at my father’s house.
The gates opened before I even knocked. My father’s housekeeper knew me instantly.
“Elena? Good heavens, what happened?”
I collapsed into the hallway, sobbing.
My father came rushing down the stairs.
He wrapped his arms around me. Held me while I told him everything. From the very beginning. The soup. The lies. The fake marriage. The poison.
When I finished, he sat in silence for a long time.
Then he stood up. His face was pale, but his voice was steady.
“We will get him back,” he said. “And we will make them pay.”
He called his lawyers immediately. They were the best in the city.
But the news was worse than I feared.
David had been careful. Too careful.
The documents were all in order—on the surface. The marriage certificate looked real. The signatures matched. There was no proof yet that anything was forged.
And David had already filed an emergency report.
Missing person. Abandonment. Unstable behavior.
He was claiming I had left voluntarily. That I was mentally unwell. That I had endangered Jacob.
And because I had run away without Jacob… it looked as though he was telling the truth.
“They’ve prepared everything,” my father’s lawyer said grimly. “Witnesses. Medical records. Statements. They’ve been building this case for months. Maybe years.”
I sat there, cold to the bone.
David and Maria had planned every single step.
From the moment they met me. From the moment Jacob was born.
Everything had been calculated.
And now… I was the one who looked guilty.
“Is there anything we can do?” I asked.
The lawyer hesitated.
“There is one possibility,” he said. “If we can prove their original marriage was legal… then yours is void. And all those documents David signed are worthless. But we need proof. A certificate. A witness. Something.”
I thought back to everything they had said.
“They were married six years ago,” I said. “Somewhere. But where?”
My father stood up.
“I will find it,” he said. “I have investigators. Resources. They cannot hide forever.”
But then the lawyer said something that turned my blood to ice.
“There’s something else,” he said. “David and Maria… they didn’t just file for custody. They filed something else.”
He looked at me gravely.
“An adoption petition.”
My breath caught.
“Adoption?”
“By the time we get all the evidence together… they could have already legally adopted him. Through a private agency. And once that happens… it is nearly impossible to undo.”
I stood up, trembling.
“Then we have no time,” I said. “I need to go back. Tonight.”
“Absolutely not,” my father said. “It’s too dangerous.”
“I don’t care,” I said. “They have my son. And I know something they don’t think I know.”
I leaned forward.
“Maria said something. When she thought I couldn’t hear. She said… Jacob was born prematurely. Complications. And that she needed a surrogate because she couldn’t carry a child herself.”
The lawyer’s eyes widened.
“If that is true,” he said slowly, “then her claim that she is his biological mother… is a lie.”
I nodded.
“And if she lied about that… she lied about everything.”
