Chapter 4

Those ten minutes on the road were the longest of my life.

If the comments were lying to me, I'd be failing both Sori and Elise.

But I'd been hesitating so long that the car had already traveled several miles. There was no turning back.

Unless Elise had actually lied to me — in which case I'd regret this for the rest of my life.

But would she really deceive me?

The car pulled up to the landslide. I spotted a small figure pinned inside a crushed vehicle.

"Sori? Is that Sori?!"

I sprinted over.

The car had flipped upside down. The child was hanging inverted in his car seat.

Blood covered his face — I couldn't wipe it away fast enough.

But the small red birthmark on his wrist told me everything. This was Sori.

"D... Daddy..." A tiny voice, barely a whisper.

Sori forced his bloodied eyes open and flashed a little gap-toothed smile:

"Mommy wasn't lying...

"Mommy really did send Daddy to find me~"

"Daddy's here..."

Elise had lied to me after all.

I grabbed the rescue equipment from the truck, cut through the car frame, and pulled Sori free. I held him against my chest and started emergency pressure on his wounds.

He lay in my arms — four years old, wounds cut down to the bone — and he didn't cry. Didn't make a sound. He just clenched his jaw and endured it. Through the pain, he even managed to ask:

"Is Mommy okay?

"When I got stuck in the car, a big rock crushed her leg too."

[Sori still believes in his mom, even now.]

[Sweet kid. Elise did start out trying to get him help — but halfway there, she got a call from Renato...]

[Poor little guy. He doesn't know Elise has already decided to let him go.]

I tightened my grip on the bandage. "You don't need to worry about her."

Sori blinked his big eyes up at me. "So... Mommy's okay?"

"She's fine."

I lifted him into my arms. "She's doing just fine."

The moment we got in the truck, Elise's voice came through my earpiece:

"Santiago — did you get Sori?"

That voice — so tense, so desperate. For a moment I couldn't speak.

Elise had been driving Sori through the mountain pass when the landslide hit. She'd crawled out of the wreck herself.

How could she possibly not know which road Sori was on?

Was it really just a mistake?

Ten years of marriage made me want one last confirmation.

"Elise." My voice came out rough. "You're sure it's the west road, right?"