“My mother took care of my wife for four days after she gave birth. When I came back, my baby was burning with fever, and my wife whispered, ‘They wouldn’t let me call you.’ Then the real reason behind all the family hatred came to light.”

My mother had been hounding me for months, demanding that I turn over our savings to her as a down payment for a house she wanted to control, claiming it was for the good of the family.

Amy had stood her ground, saying that our son needed stability, and I had foolishly sided with my mother, telling Amy she was being unreasonable and dramatic.

That memory burned in my mind like acid.

“Your mother told me that if I died, you would finally come back to your real family,” Amy murmured, “and if the baby died too, there would be no one left in your life to keep us apart.”

Suddenly, a massive argument broke out in the hallway, with Karen shrieking that Amy was a liar and my mother shouting that her own son was suing her over a simple family disagreement.

The police didn’t bother arguing with them, they just cuffed them.

As they walked past the room, my mother locked eyes with me and spat, “Blood calls to blood, Mark, you’ll regret this.”

I looked through the glass at my son, hooked up to the monitors in the incubator.

“Yes, it does,” I said, not even raising my voice. “That is exactly why I am choosing my son.”

And just when I thought I had reached the bottom of the pit, the doctor told me there was something else, something I had never even thought to look for.

CHAPTER 3: THE VOICE OF THE TRUTH

The proof of their cruelty wasn’t found in a hidden letter or a confession, but on an old, forgotten device.

Before Sam was born, I had set up an old smartphone near the bassinet to act as a baby monitor, connecting it to the Wi-Fi so I could check on them if I was working late.

Karen had found it on the second day and shut it off, thinking she had destroyed any evidence of what they were doing in that room.

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