On the morning of his daughter’s third birthday, Callum left the house to buy a toy. It should have been a simple thing. A quick trip. One small errand before the candles were lit and the presents were opened. Instead, it became the day everything fell apart. When I got home, the house was silent. No music playing from the radio. No off-key humming from the kitchen. No soft footsteps moving across the tile. Just the faint ticking of the clock on the wall.The low, steady hum of the refrigerator.

I thought our anniversary dinner would save my marriage. I truly believed that one beautiful night, one thoughtful plan, would fix everything that had been slowly breaking between us. Instead, my husband and his mother humiliated me in front of a restaurant full of strangers. I walked out in tears, shaking and broken… and straight into someone who would quietly, unexpectedly, change my life forever. My name is Elizabeth. I was 32 at the time, and I had never believed in fate. I believed in schedules, logic, and plans that

I grew up in an orphanage, clinging to my little sister like she was a lifeline. Her name was Mia. I was eight when we got separated, and for the next thirty-two years, I wondered if she even existed. If she was alive. If she ever remembered me. My name is Elena, and when I was eight, I promised Mia something I wasn’t sure I could ever keep. “I’ll find you,” I whispered as I hugged her tight that last day. Then life carried me away, and for three decades,