His Daughter Found Her Missing Brother

CHAPTER 1 - The Boy Beside the Fountain

"Daddy, he really looks like me!"

Adrian Cole followed Lily's pointing finger.

A thin boy sat beside the fountain, clutching a wrinkled paper bag. His clothes were worn, but it was his face that stopped Adrian.

The boy had Lily's nose.

He also had Adrian's gray-blue eyes.

Adrian crouched before him. "What's your name?"

"Ethan."

"Are you here with anyone?"

"My mom is working."

Lily sat beside Ethan as if they were already friends.

"I'm Lily, and that's my dad," she announced. Then she studied him. "You have my nose."

Ethan's eyes widened.

He pulled an old photograph from his bag. It showed Adrian at twenty-six, wearing a blue suit beside Caroline Bennett, the woman he had once planned to marry.

"Mom said if I ever found the man in this picture, I should ask if he's my dad."

Adrian nearly dropped the photograph.

Caroline had vanished nine years earlier. His father claimed she had accepted money and left Europe with another man. Adrian searched for months before receiving a letter telling him never to contact her again.

"Where is your mother?"

Ethan pointed toward the Grand Bell Hotel.

"She works in the laundry. We sleep downstairs when the manager doesn't notice."

Adrian's chest tightened.

"How old are you?"

"Eight."

The answer struck harder than any accusation.

Lily reached for Ethan's hand.

"If Daddy is your daddy, does that make you my brother?"

Ethan looked hopeful, then frightened.

"Are you going to take me away from Mom?"

"No," Adrian answered immediately. "But I need to speak to her."

Inside the hotel, a supervisor reluctantly led them to the basement laundry.

Caroline was lying unconscious beside a cart of folded sheets.

Adrian rushed toward her.

As her eyes opened, she saw him holding Ethan's photograph.

Her expression filled with terror.

"Please," Caroline whispered. "Whatever your family told you, don't take my son."