Chapter 2 - They Were Planning to Take Noah Away
I got Noah off the floor first.
No matter how furious I was, that came before everything.
He was shaken, crying, and furious in a way only a child who understood humiliation could be furious. His palms clung to my jacket while I checked him for pain. He had no serious injury from the fall, thank God, but the fear in him was worse than any bruise.
Once I settled him into one of the leather chairs and pulled the wheelchair back beside him, I looked again at the paper in my hands.
It wasn’t some vague draft.
It was complete.
It named Noah specifically. It described him as “emotionally unstable,” “excessively fixated on his deceased mother,” and “unsafe in the current domestic environment.” It authorized his immediate transfer to a residential pediatric care facility in Connecticut the following morning, pending formal review. Temporary decision-making power during that transition would be given to the adult spouse residing in the home.
Alina.
My jaw tightened so hard it hurt.
There was a witness line.
There were initials.
And on the lower right corner, where the page had been folded over on itself, another signature line was partly hidden.
That had to be what Maria meant.
“There’s another name?” I asked.
Maria was still on the floor near the remains of the divider, one hand braced against the marble. “I took it before she could burn it.”
Alina turned on her instantly. “She’s lying.”
I looked at Alina. “You had a contract ready to send my son away by morning.”
Her voice sharpened. “Declan, listen to me—”
“No,” I said, so coldly that even I heard something different in my own voice. “You listen to me.”
Alina’s face was still red where I had slapped her, but her expression was already reorganizing itself, already trying to find a way back to innocence.
“She twisted everything,” she said. “Noah has become impossible to control. Maria knows it. The facility was supposed to help him.”
My head snapped toward Maria. “You signed this?”
Maria swallowed. “No.”
There was a beat of silence.
Then Noah spoke in a small, trembling voice from the chair behind me.
“Daddy… Maria told me not to let Alina take Mom’s picture.”
Every muscle in my body went still.
I turned to him slowly.
“What did you say?”
He looked down at his hands.
“She said if Alina ever asked for it again, I had to hold onto it.”
I looked from Noah to Maria.
If Maria had been part of this, why would she warn him to protect the photo?
And if she wasn’t part of it—
May you like
why had Alina been so desperate to destroy it the moment I walked in?
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