Chapter 2

In my line of sight.

A man stepped out of the convenience store, just lighting a cigarette. He must have gone inside to buy them.

The crying boy ran straight into his arms, yelling, "Daddy!"

The man originally looked furious.

But the moment he turned his head and locked eyes with me, his face went completely pale.

He didn't yell at me. Instead, with a look of sheer panic, he scooped the boy up and walked away as fast as he could.

He practically started jogging until they vanished from my sight around the corner.

That hurried, escaping silhouette screamed guilt.

I felt a nagging sense of familiarity. I had seen this man somewhere before.

Moreover, his reaction upon seeing me was incredibly bizarre.

It was as if... he knew me, too.

The crowd finally fully dispersed.

I got back into the car, feeling completely disconnected from my body.

"Man, Ethan, I gotta say, that kid looks freakishly like your son."

"At least ninety percent..." Luke kept murmuring in disbelief.

Then, he joked, "If I didn't know you were a straight-up family man, I’d seriously suspect you had a secret family somewhere!"

My heart skipped a beat. A terrible, suffocating feeling settled in my chest.

Luke had never met my wife, Lily.

So he didn't know that Leo didn't actually look like me.

Leo’s eyes, nose, and face shape were the exact copy of Lily’s.

Since he was a baby, our relatives had always praised Leo for inheriting his mother's beautiful features.

In other words... the boy I just ran into didn't just look like Leo. He looked exactly like *Lily*.

I met Lily through a mutual friend. We liked each other, and within a month, we had a whirlwind wedding.

Out of respect, I never pried into her past relationship history.

Which meant, chronologically, my darkest suspicion was entirely possible.

That boy looked about a year older than Leo.

Could she have... had a child with someone else before she met me?

As my mind raced with wild, agonizing thoughts, a realization suddenly struck me like a lightning bolt.

I remembered who that man was.

Ryan Jenkins.

My wife's stepbrother!

My wife’s name was Lily. They had different last names because they shared absolutely no blood relation.

Ten years ago, before I met Lily, her parents divorced.

Her father, Robert, remarried the next year. Ryan was the son Robert's new wife, Helen, brought into the family.

So, Lily and her so-called "brother" had lived under the same roof for nearly a decade.

Lily only told me all this after we got married.

In our eight years of marriage, her father's side of the family barely kept in touch with us.

I had only met Ryan twice in my life—once being at our wedding.

If they were biological siblings, their kids looking alike would make sense.

But they didn't share a single drop of blood.

So why on earth did Ryan's son look exactly like my son? How could I *not* suspect something?

I was a complete mess for the rest of the afternoon.

As soon as my shift ended, I drove straight home.

My son was already home from school.

The moment I walked in, I saw him sitting at the coffee table in the living room, doing his homework.

"Daddy!"

Leo was always a sweet boy. Seeing me, he dropped his pencil and ran to hug my waist.

Looking at his innocent, familiar face, I couldn't help but picture the boy from this afternoon.

My wife was in the kitchen cooking dinner. I chatted with Leo for a bit, then walked toward the kitchen.

Leaning against the doorframe, I tried to sound casual. "Hey babe, the strangest thing happened to me today. You won't believe it."

"I was driving by Riverside Elementary at noon and saw a boy who looked exactly like Leo."

"Seriously, I couldn't tell them apart. I actually tried to grab him and almost got arrested as a kidnapper by the crowd..."

Lily didn't pay much attention at first.

But as I finished, her body stiffened. The spatula slipped from her hand and clattered loudly onto the stove.

My heart sank into a dark, cold abyss.