I adopted twin baby girls I found wrapped in towels in a beach changing cubicle—on their 18th birthday, they handed me the same towels and whispered, “Dad… We owe you the truth.”

Chapter 5: The Man in the Letter

I kept reading.

My father found out I changed the beneficiary papers. He knows everything goes to you and the babies if I die. He said I was humiliating the family by marrying you.

My stomach turned.

Anna’s father had hated me.

Charles Whitmore was the kind of man who wore kindness in public and cruelty at home. He thought I was beneath his daughter because I came from nothing, worked with my hands, and could not offer her a family name worth printing on invitations.

After Anna died, he handled everything.

The funeral.

The hospital paperwork.

The tiny sealed casket they told me held our baby.

I had been too broken to question any of it.

If I don’t survive, Daniel, listen carefully. My father will try to erase you. He will try to erase them. Lila is the only person I trust.

I looked at the photograph again.

The woman beside Anna.

Lila.

The stranger who had left two newborn girls where she knew I would hear them cry.

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