The room spun around me, my lungs collapsing beneath the weight of two impossible words:
"She's alive."
I could barely form thoughts, let alone words, as James gripped my hands tightly.
"Are you sure he said Sophia?" he asked, eyes searching mine for doubt.
I nodded, voice barely a whisper. "He found her medical records. Updated. Three months ago."
He didn't try to comfort me — not with lies. He knew the fire in my chest wasn't confusion.
It was grief unburied.
Hope reborn.
And a thousand questions screaming louder than my heartbeat.
---
An hour later, we were on a private jet headed to Kilmarnock, a remote countryside town tucked in the northern outskirts of Scotland. According to Miles, she had been registered under a pseudonym — Eliza Rowan — and was being cared for at a private recovery facility called Greystone Manor.
James sat beside me, silent but alert, fingers constantly scrolling through encrypted feeds.
"What if she doesn't want to see me?" I asked.
He looked up. "Then we knock anyway."
The sky was turning pale as we landed, the kind of sunrise that looked too soft to exist in a world this cruel.
A black SUV was waiting.
And thirty minutes later, we pulled through the wrought-iron gates of Greystone Manor.
---
It looked more like a countryside inn than a facility — stone walls, ivy-covered archways, and calm birdsong drifting over the hills.
But the calm was a lie.
My heart thundered as a nurse led us down a long, oak-paneled corridor.
"She doesn't speak to many people," the nurse said softly. "But… she might talk to you."
Then she stopped at a door and stepped aside.
I stared at the polished wood, suddenly afraid to knock.
What would I find?
A stranger?
A ghost?
Or… the woman I had been mourning for half my life?
James touched my back gently. "You're not alone."
I nodded.
Then pushed the door open.
---
She was sitting by the window, hair longer, streaked with gray, tucked into a loose braid. A thick cardigan clung to her frame, and her gaze was fixed on the hills.
"Sophia?" I whispered.
She turned slowly.
And the moment our eyes met…
I knew.
Those eyes — deep, stormy, full of both sorrow and steel.
She stood — slowly, uncertainly — then gasped.
"Amelia?"
I choked on a sob. "Mum…"
She covered her mouth. Tears slid down her cheeks.
"I thought you were—"
"Gone," she whispered. "You were just a baby."
I crossed the room and collapsed into her arms.
We both wept.
For the years stolen.
For the silence.
For every moment we thought the other was gone forever.
---
Minutes later, we sat facing each other, hands still linked.
"I don't understand," I whispered. "Why didn't you come back for me?"
She swallowed hard. "They told me you were dead."
My heart stopped.
"What?"
"When I refused to cooperate," she said shakily, "they faked your death certificate. Told me you'd been taken, that you didn't survive."
"That's what they told me about you," I said. "They made it look like you'd been—"
"Eliminated," she finished. "It was their way of ending the trail."
"You've been hiding all this time?"
She nodded. "Under state protection. But it was never safe. I moved every few years. New names, new cities. I never stopped looking for you."
I stared at her, throat tight. "They stole everything from us."
"And now," she said, fire returning to her voice, "it's time we take it back."
---
She turned to James, who had been quietly watching.
"You're the one helping her," she said.
"I am," he replied. "And I won't stop."
She nodded. "Good. Because you're going to need more than files to take them down. You're going to need me."