She believed attacking a pregnant woman in the hospital had no consequences — until the father she never expected showed up.

Sophia looked at the man who had vanished from her life decades ago.

“Why?” she whispered. “Why are you here?”

He inhaled slowly, like the words he carried weighed more than he could easily bear.

“I don’t deserve your trust,” he said. “Or your forgiveness. But I never stopped looking for you. Your mother left without letting me fight for either of you. Years went by. Too many. Then I saw your name on a medical intake list. I came because…I couldn’t stay gone anymore. Not when you needed someone.”

A hundred emotions burned through her—rage, confusion, longing, disbelief. But before she could choose which to drown in, pain seized her abdomen, fierce and all-consuming.

Nurses rushed back. Words flew—“preterm labor… elevated stress response… move now.” The world blurred as they rolled her down sterile halls. Through the dizziness, only one constant remained.

Michael.

He walked beside her gurney, never breaking eye contact.

“You’re not alone,” he murmured.

Hours stretched into agony and fear—machines, doctors, pain tearing through her body like storms. Then, suddenly—

A cry.

Small. Fragile. Miraculous.

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