Chapter 7 - Preston Comes BackPreston came to my apartment two days after Sophie left the hospital.

I knew he was downstairs before he buzzed.

Our building was old, with thin windows and a front gate that rattled when anyone touched it. I heard a car door close, then the low murmur of a driver speaking into a phone. Wealth had a sound. Smooth engines. Expensive shoes on cracked pavement. Men who expected doors to open.

Sophie was asleep on the couch, curled beneath a purple blanket with the stuffed rabbit Amber had brought her tucked under one arm.

The buzzer rang.

I checked the camera.

Preston stood under the yellow entry light, holding flowers.

White lilies.

I almost laughed.

Funeral flowers.

I pressed the intercom. “Leave.”

His face lifted toward the camera. “Natalie, please.”

“No.”

“I just want to see her.”

“You lost that privilege before you knew you had it.”

He looked pained, which made me angrier. Pain was easy now. Where had it been when I stood at his gate with my coat soaked through? Where had it been when Sophie had fevers and I worked double shifts? Where had it been when she asked why other kids had dads at school breakfast?

“I didn’t know everything,” he said.

“You knew enough.”

“My mother told me you left town.”

“After she threatened me.”

“She said you didn’t want me involved.”

I closed my eyes for one second.

The old version of me might have cracked. She might have wanted to believe him because believing him would make the past hurt less. It would mean Sophie was not rejected—only hidden. It would mean the man I loved had been fooled, not cruel.

But old Natalie had died in pieces.

In clinics.

In court offices.

In checkout lines with coupons.

In emergency rooms.

In the long nights when Sophie cried from colic and I cried silently beside her.

The woman standing at the intercom had buried too much to accept cheap resurrection.

“You’re responsible for what you choose not to know,” I said.

He gripped the lilies harder. “I want a DNA test.”

My eyes opened.

There it was.

Not an apology.

Not remorse.

A claim.

“You are not coming near my daughter.”

“She’s mine too.”

I pressed my palm flat against the wall. “Say that again after you explain why your first interaction with her ended in a concussion.”

His jaw tightened.

The wounded man vanished. The Hale heir returned.

“Natalie, don’t force this into court.”

I smiled coldly at the camera. “I thought court was exactly where your family wanted to drag me.”

“I’m trying to be reasonable.”

“No. You’re trying to recover control.”

He stepped closer to the door. “I can give her things you can’t.”

That sentence finished whatever mercy I still had.

“You’re right,” I said. “You can give her a family name soaked in cowardice. You can give her a grandmother who framed her. You can give her a father who only noticed her after the police did. Keep those things.”

His face darkened.

“Natalie.”

I lowered my voice. “Leave before I call Officer Morales.”

For a moment, neither of us moved.

Then Sophie’s sleepy voice came from behind me.

“Mommy?”

I turned.

She stood in the hallway in her pajamas, hair messy, bandage smaller now but still visible. Her eyes were heavy with confusion.

“Who is it?”

The intercom was still open.

Preston heard her.

His face changed on the screen.

“Sophie,” he whispered.

She looked toward the sound. “Who knows my name?”

I ended the call.

The screen went black.

Sophie stared at me.

My heart broke in the quiet space between us.

I knelt and opened my arms. She walked into them.

“Baby,” I said carefully, “there are some things I need to explain.”

Outside, Preston remained at the gate for nine minutes.

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Then he left the lilies on the sidewalk.

By morning, they were brown at the edges.