I was beyond exhausted, and my head was pounding. The intermittent surges of adrenaline my body had been feeding me all night had ravaged me.

“Where’s Travis? When can we take him home?” Dad asked.

Now, wasn’t that the million-dollar question?

My shoulders sagged in defeat.

Mark looked at me, but when I found myself unable to reply, he answered for me. “Temporarily, Travis has been placed in the care of his biological parents.”

“No fucking way!” Tanner boomed. “He doesn’t even know them.”

Strangely enough, despite the fact that we’d been dating for over a month, I was starting to feel like I didn’t know Charlotte, either.

I bit the inside of my cheek until I tasted blood. “Charlotte asked for an order of protection to prevent me from having any contact with Travis.”

“What?” Dad and Tanner gasped in unison, their shock echoing my own.

Charlotte, more than anyone else, knew exactly what my children meant to me. I had no words to adequately explain the pain of that betrayal. It seemed to be a common thread in my life when it came to women.

“Holy hell,” Tanner breathed, gripping the back of his neck.

Mark chimed in. “There will be a custody hearing next week to decide something long term. I’ll be honest. We don’t have much ground to work with, but we’re preparing to make a case that, given his health issues, it’s in Travis’s best interest to remain with the only father he’s ever known—at least part-time.”

“Part-time?” Dad snarled.

Those two syllables feeling like a one-two knockout punch. Though, when faced with the horrifying possibility of not having him at all, part-time was the only hope I had to hold on to.

“I’m afraid so,” Mark said. “And, after talking to the family’s counsel, it doesn’t sound like the child’s parents are going to be open to this arrangement.”

“Holy shit. Are you okay?” Tanner asked, reaching out to cup my shoulder.

No. I wasn’t okay in any fashion. My blood was boiling, and my soul was crushed. Half of my life had been ripped away from me.

Emotion clogged my throat. “No. I’m never going to be okay with this. That’s my son. And people just expect me to let him go because Catherine was a madwoman. That doesn’t fucking change the fact that he’s mine. He will always be mine.”

Before I had the chance to break down completely, Tanner caught the back of my neck and stepped in front of me.

His gaze intense and his words promising. “We’ll get him back.”

“How?” I begged. “Please, God. Just tell me how?”

Tanner’s face paled. “I don’t know yet. But I swear I’ll get him back for you. We’re the Reese brothers, remember? We’ll find a way.”

“I can’t even think anymore.” Shaking my head, I cut my gaze to the ground. “I need a timeout. I need all of this to stop for a few minutes so I can figure this out.”

Charlotte’s voice suddenly infiltrated my mind. “I need it to stop, Porter.”

I’d only thought I understood her before that day.

But I had no clue the hell she was living through.

And, if I was being honest with myself, a part of my heart was happy for her that she’d found her son.

But why did it have to be my son?

“Come on, Porter. I’ll drive you home,” Dad said.

“I got him,” Tanner countered. “You go ahead. Mom’s gonna be a wreck. We’ll run by my place and grab some clothes, and I’ll stay with him tonight.”

I nodded absently.

A few minutes later, I found my ass in Tanner’s Mercedes, the pitch-black night sky bearing down on me with the weight of a thousand lifetimes.

“When we get to my place, you want to fight the pond?” he asked, his eyes on the road.

“No,” I replied, digging the phone from my back pocket. The police had confiscated it from me when they’d brought me in.

“You hungry?”

“No.”

“What about a drink? You want to get sloshed?”

Pressing the power button on my phone, I kept my head down as I answered, “I could drink the entirety of Russia’s vodka supply and it wouldn’t numb me enough to handle this shit right now.”

The light on my phone illuminated the car, and the image on my home screen gutted me. It was a picture of Travis and Hannah. He was smiling directly at the camera, happy and carefree, but she was sitting beside him, gazing up at him like he held the keys to the universe.

My lungs caught fire as I stared at that picture, my hand gripping the phone impossibly tight, as if I could bring that moment to life.

When my phone finished booting up, a million notifications popped up on my screen, blocking Travis’s sweet face. Hannah’s was still visible off to the side, but I could no longer see her smile. The symbolism wasn’t lost on me.

Among the messages was a stream of texts from my mom, probably from when they had first hauled me away. Then some from my dad, one from Tanner, and a handful from the manager at The Porterhouse asking questions about the restaurant, oblivious to the rollercoaster through hell I was currently trapped on.

I scrolled through all of them.

Or almost all of them.

My body turned to stone when I saw her name.

Charlotte: Hey dad I’m with Charlotte she said she will take care of me until you can come get me. I love you. See you soon.

My hand flew out to the side, gripping Tanner’s arm. “Stop the car!”

“What?” Tanner asked, jerking his head in my direction.

“Stop the car!” I yelled, hope exploding in my veins. “She’s going to give him back.”

“What?” he repeated incredulously.

My hands shook, and a huge, manic smile pulled at my lips. “Oh God, she’s going to give him back.” I pressed on her name and lifted my phone to my ear.

“What the hell are you talking about?” my brother asked.

The ringing of the phone droned in my ear as I explained, “She let Travis text me. Said she’d take care of him until I could get there to pick him up.”

When her voicemail picked up, I hit end and then immediately hit send again. It started ringing all over again.

“Porter, stop,” Tanner whispered, pulling off to the side of the road.

Her voicemail picked up again, and this time, I decided to leave a message.

“Hey, sweetheart. I just got Travis’s text.”

“Porter. Stop,” Tanner urged, trying to grab my phone.

Leaning away, I smacked his hand. “God, baby. What a fucking day.” I blew out a hard breath. “I’m on my way now. Tell Travis I love him. Actually…Christ, I love both of you.” I paused and lowered my voice. “Stay out of the darkness until I get there, Charlotte. I swear on my life I had no idea he was your son. I promise we’ll figure this out.” I hit end and dropped the phone into my lap, a renewed faith blazing inside me. “All right. Let’s go. She lives up north, near the hospital. I’ll tell you how to get there.”

Tanner didn’t put the car into drive. He sat there, staring at the steering wheel. “She’s not just going to give him back to you.”

“What the fuck are you talking about? Yes. She is. Here—read the text.” I lifted my phone in his direction.

But, when he turned to look at me, his painful gaze was aimed over it. “You heard Mark. They filed an order with the court to keep you away from him.”

“So she changed her mind,” I argued. “She let him text me, Tanner. That means something.”

His jaw was hard as he shook his head. “Yeah. It does. But it could mean a lot of things. Maybe she had a weak moment. Maybe Travis jacked her phone and sent it behind her back. There could be a million different maybes about why she did it. But the only thing I know for sure is that she’s not giving him back.”

The bitterness of anger lit my tongue. “You don’t know shit!”

He didn’t raise his voice as he said, “I know that she just found her kid after ten years of him being gone. Rita told me she’s been living in a haze since he went missing. And, now, she finally got that back.” He shrugged. “I’m sorry, but I refuse to believe she’s just going to hand him over to you.”