Chapter 115\u00a0<\/p>\n
Jonathan\u2019s POV\u00a0<\/p>\n
I could feel my heart hammering against my ribs as the small boy Oliver\u2013barely reaching my waist\u2013stared up at me with eyes far too perceptive for his age. Despite his diminutive stature, there was something deeply unsettling about his presence. The weight of his gaze made me want to take a step back, though I remained rooted to\u00a0<\/p>\n
the spot.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou claim to be my mother\u2019s adoptive father,\u201d Oliver said, rolling the\u00a0<\/p>\n
words around his mouth with deliberate precision. \u201cYet how can you\u00a0<\/p>\n
call yourself a father when you never truly raised her?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
My mouth went dry. In all my years navigating Chicago\u2019s cutthroat\u00a0<\/p>\n
design industry, I\u2019d never felt as intimidated as I did by this six\u2013year-\u00a0<\/p>\n
old child.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty\u2013six years ago, during a heavy snowstorm,\u201d I began,\u00a0<\/p>\n
summoning the practiced story, \u201cI found your mother abandoned,\u00a0<\/p>\n
crying in the snow. I couldn\u2019t bear to leave a baby there to freeze, so I\u00a0<\/p>\n
took her home.\u201d I attempted a wistful expression. \u201cMy wife and I\u00a0<\/p>\n
weren\u2019t heartless people. We took her in, raised her as our own\u2026\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re lying!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
3\/7\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 115\u00a0<\/p>\n
The accusation cut through my carefully constructed facade. I\u00a0<\/p>\n
swallowed hard, doubling down.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s no reason for me to lie about this. If my wife and I hadn\u2019t\u00a0<\/p>\n
been passing by that road, your mother would have frozen to death,\u00a0<\/p>\n
and you wouldn\u2019t even exist-\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIs that so?\u201d Oliver\u2019s voice carried a coldness no child should possess.\u00a0<\/p>\n
To my horror, he removed his leather backpack, unzipped it\u00a0<\/p>\n
methodically, and pulled out a stack of documents, throwing them at\u00a0<\/p>\n
me with surprising force. Papers scattered across the polished\u00a0<\/p>\n
hardwood between us.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cIt seems your memory is failing you, Mr. Wright. You\u2019ve conveniently\u00a0<\/p>\n
forgotten why my mother spent over twenty years with your family.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Forgetting doesn\u2019t erase what happened!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I felt the blood drain from my face as I frantically gathered the\u00a0<\/p>\n
papers. Cedar moved closer, kneeling beside her son.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat is all this?\u201d she asked him softly.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStand back, Mom. Today I\u2019m going to tear off these people\u2019s masks\u00a0<\/p>\n
and show you who they really are.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
217\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 115\u00a0<\/p>\n
My fingers trembled as I scanned the documents. Papers nobody\u00a0<\/p>\n
should have had access to. Documents that revealed a truth I\u2019d buried\u00a0<\/p>\n
decades ago.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The papers slipped from my hands. Cedar\u2019s eyes widened as she glimpsed their contents and began collecting them with growing\u00a0<\/p>\n
urgency.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cTwenty\u2013six years ago, my mother was the most well\u2013behaved and beautiful child at the orphanage,\u201d Oliver continued, his voice trembling with righteous anger. \u201cMany childless couples wanted to adopt her. When she was three months old, a kind teacher and his wife adopted her. They loved her dearly, but less than two weeks later, you and your wife forcibly took away their parental rights!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s not how it happened-\u201d I began, but my protest sounded\u00a0<\/p>\n
hollow even to my own ears.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cedar\u2019s hands tightened around the papers, her knuckles turning white. \u201cYou always said you saved my life, but that wasn\u2019t true, was it? Even without you, I would have been raised in the orphanage or by that teacher couple. I was never going to die in the snow\u2026 was I?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The shame I\u2019d suppressed for decades threatened to suffocate me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cA fortune teller told you the Wright family wouldn\u2019t have a male heir\u00a0<\/p>\n
317\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 115\u00a0<\/p>\n
in this generation,\u201d Oliver continued relentlessly. \u201cTo change this\u00a0<\/p>\n
fate, you needed a baby girl with the right birth chart. So you targeted\u00a0<\/p>\n
my mother and forced that teacher couple to give up their parental\u00a0<\/p>\n
rights.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I couldn\u2019t deny it. Twenty\u2013six years ago, a fortune teller had indeed stopped me on Michigan Avenue with that prediction. I hadn\u2019t believed it then\u2013I wasn\u2019t a superstitious man. But after years of marriage with no children, a series of coincidences led me back to\u00a0<\/p>\n
that same fortune teller.\u00a0<\/p>\n
What followed was indeed the shameful act the child described.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cI investigated that teacher couple,\u201d Oliver\u2019s voice cut through my memories. \u201cThey later adopted another girl who grew up happily, learning piano and ballet. She\u2019s now a successful artist. That could have been my mother\u2019s life if you hadn\u2019t stolen her away to be abused\u00a0<\/p>\n
and tormented!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYour so\u2013called life\u2013saving grace was a fabricated lie. Your claims of raising her with love are complete nonsense!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
The boy\u2019s rage was palpable. If looks could kill, I would have been\u00a0<\/p>\n
riddled with holes.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cedar\u2019s POV\u00a0<\/p>\n
417\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 115\u00a0<\/p>\n
I stared at the documents in my hands, my entire world shifting beneath my feet. A cold, bitter laugh escaped my lips as twenty\u2013six\u00a0<\/p>\n
years of lies unraveled before me.\u00a0<\/p>\n
How had I never suspected? The story they\u2019d told me about being abandoned in the snow had always seemed dramatic, theatrical even.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I\u2019d believed it.\u00a0<\/p>\n
I raised my eyes to Jonathan\u2019s ashen face. \u201cSo the letter and necklace supposedly left by my birth parents\u2013were those lies too?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThat part is actually true, Mom!\u201d Oliver interjected. \u201cI tracked down that teacher couple. They told me you were kidnapped as an infant. After the police rescued you, they couldn\u2019t find your birth parents, so you were sent to the orphanage. The letter and necklace were stolen from your mother when you were taken.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I pressed my lips together until they hurt. For years, the Wrights had whispered in my ear that I was abandoned, unwanted. I\u2019d grown up\u00a0<\/p>\n
resenting parents I\u2019d never met.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But I hadn\u2019t been abandoned\u2013I\u2019d been stolen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Twenty\u2013six years ago, at just over two months old, I was kidnapped. My birth mother had lost her child. The pain she must have felt\u2026\u00a0<\/p>\n
5\/7\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 115\u00a0<\/p>\n
I didn\u2019t need to imagine it. If someone took Oliver from me, I\u2019d be devastated beyond repair. And I wasn\u2019t even his biological mother. The thought of my actual mother, possibly still grieving her lost child after all these years, made my throat tighten with emotion.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cCedar, these things happened twenty\u2013six years ago. Let\u2019s not dwell on the past,\u201d Jonathan attempted, his voice placating. \u201cWhatever happened, we raised you. You\u2019re a Wright. Our connection can\u2019t be\u00a0<\/p>\n
severed-\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cStop talking!\u201d I shouted, my vision blurred with tears of rage. \u201cHalf my life was destroyed by your family! Don\u2019t tell me not to \u2018dwell on it\u2018! Without you, I wouldn\u2019t have grown up being abused. Without you, I wouldn\u2019t be covered in scars. Without you, I might have had a normal, healthy sense of self\u2013worth!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
I glared at the man who had claimed to be my savior all these years. For the first time, I didn\u2019t feel the need to bow my head or speak softly. The \u201cdebt of gratitude\u201d that had kept me subservient for decades was nothing but a cruel manipulation.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Wrights owed me\u2013not the other way around.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Oliver reached into his backpack and pulled out a credit card, throwing it at Jonathan\u2019s face with a sharp flick of his wrist.\u00a0<\/p>\n
6\/7\u00a0<\/p>\n
Chapter 115\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s $200,000 on this card,\u201d he declared coldly. \u201cThat\u2019s the exact amount you paid to buy my mother\u2019s custody rights back then. I\u2019m returning your money, and you will never bother her again. You have three days to hand over the keepsakes from her birth parents, or I\u2019ll make sure the Wright family falls even further than they already\u00a0<\/p>\n
have.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Sky Remembered the Touch of Our Unfinished Goodbyes by Lysa Orion Rehn 115 Chapter 115\u00a0 Jonathan\u2019s POV\u00a0 I could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[88],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30514","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-zero-stars-for-daddy-novel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30514","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30514"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30514\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30514"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30514"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kezpres.xyz\/novelreading\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30514"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}