Chapter 148 Grand Finale

Chapter 148 Grand Finale

"I know that child isn't yours by blood," Sophie said, holding Elena's gaze. "I also know you traded a dead infant boy to buy the Davis family five years of wealth and privilege."

The color drained from Elena's face. "So you really did dig up everything."

"What are you planning to do with me?" Sophie asked, her voice steady.

A slow, crooked smile spread across Elena's lips. "You think I'm going to let you walk out of here alive?"

The words had barely left her mouth when two men charged out from the far end of the warehouse, rushing Sophie from both sides.

Then the warehouse door exploded open from the outside.

Matthew came through first, his team right behind him, and in the span of a single breath both men were face-down on the concrete floor.

Elena stumbled back two steps, all the color gone from her face.

And then the person who walked in behind Matthew made her blood run cold.

Preston.

He was wearing a black trench coat, his expression carved from stone, his gaze locked on Elena, and behind those eyes burned something she had never seen from him before. A fury that looked very much like it wanted to end things.

"Elena," he said, his voice stripped of everything warm. "Anything you'd like to say?"

Elena opened her mouth. Nothing came out.

Preston looked away from her. He turned toward Sophie.

Five years.

He finally recognized her.

Sophie met his eyes and didn't move, didn't step back, didn't look away.

"Preston," she said, her voice quiet but completely level. "It's time we settled what happened between us."

---

Matthew handed Elena and the two men off to the police. The evidence in the baby-swap case was airtight, and with an attempted murder charge stacked on top of it, Elena was looking at a very long time behind bars. When Violet learned the truth, she collapsed on the spot. After she came to, she locked herself in her room and refused to see anyone.

Preston sat in the back of the car, watching the city scroll past the window, and said nothing for a long time.

He had imagined running into Sophie again more times than he could count. He had expected her anger. He had expected her to run. He had expected her to do everything she could to get away from him, the way she had five years ago. What he hadn't expected was for her to stand there in front of him, calm and unhurried, like she had made her peace with all of it long before tonight.

It's time we settled what happened between us.

Sitting in that car, something finally settled in him too. All this time he had told himself he was waiting for her. But she hadn't been waiting. She had already moved on.

---

Three days after Elena's arrest, Ciaran was brought to the hotel where Sophie was staying.

He was small and thin, and he stopped in the doorway like he wasn't sure he had permission to come inside. His eyes, nearly identical to Sophie's, were wide with a kind of anxious, uncertain fear.

"Ciaran. Come here." Sophie crouched down and held out her hand.

Ciaran glanced at her, then shifted his gaze to the small face peering out from behind her, Silas, half-hidden in the doorway.

"Mama," Silas whispered, "who is he?"

Sophie drew Silas in close and took one boy's hand in each of hers. "He's your little brother," she said softly.

Ciaran went very still. Then his eyes filled with tears.

---

That afternoon, Sophie took both boys down to the hotel's kids' play area and let them run loose for hours. Ciaran was cautious at first, hanging back, watching. But Silas had a way of pulling people in, and by the end of it Ciaran was right there in the middle of things, laughing the kind of laugh that didn't seem to come naturally to him, like it had been waiting a long time to get out.

Around dinnertime, Matthew came to pick them all up.

Silas grabbed Ciaran's hand and the two of them took off ahead, chattering nonstop. Sophie followed at a slower pace, Matthew falling into step beside her. The setting sun stretched their shadows long across the pavement.

"What's next for you?" Matthew asked.

Sophie thought about it. "Get Ciaran settled first, figure out his school transfer. Then there are a few projects back at the company I need to move forward on." She paused and glanced at him. "What about you?"

Matthew smiled a little. "Wherever you are."

Sophie didn't look away.

The last of the evening light spilled over them, soft and golden and unhurried. Silas's laugh carried back from somewhere ahead, and then, faintly, Ciaran's too, quieter, but real.

"Matthew," Sophie said.

"Yeah."

"Thank you."

Matthew didn't say don't mention it. He just reached over and ruffled her hair, the same easy, familiar gesture he had made a hundred times over the past five years.

"Let's go home," he said. "Food's getting cold."

Sophie smiled.

Her home wasn't in this city. It wasn't in the past. It wasn't in the wreckage of old loves and old wounds.

Her home was right in front of her.

It was in the two small hands she'd held today. It was in the eyes of the man beside her who had never once walked away. It was in every ordinary tomorrow that Silas would grow up steady enough to take for granted.

---

The day of Elena's sentencing, Sophie didn't go.

Preston did. He sat in the very last row of the gallery and didn't say a word through any of it. When the verdict came down, he stood, walked out, and stopped at the top of the courthouse steps for a long time.

He took out his phone. Scrolled to a number he had never once called.

He stood there with his thumb over it.

Then he put the phone away.

Some wrong turns can't be walked back. Some people are simply gone. It had taken him five years to understand that. He could only hope it wasn't too late to do something with the understanding.

---

Three months later, Sophie was at her studio abroad when a new project landed on her desk, a collaboration with a heritage American brand partnering with a well-established Chinese label. She was halfway through the kickoff meeting when she noticed the name on the other side of the table.

Howard Group.

Matthew was sitting directly across from her. He gave her a composed nod, extended his hand with perfect professionalism, and said, "Sophie. Looking forward to working together."

Sophie shook his hand, a laugh escaping before she could stop it. "Mr. Howard. You move fast."

"Had to," he said. The corner of his mouth curved up. "Didn't want to get beat to it."

---

Back home, Silas and Ciaran were sprawled on the living room floor, drawing.

Silas had drawn a family of four: a pretty mom with a ponytail, a tall man, and two little boys holding hands.

Ciaran studied it carefully, then pointed to the tall figure. "Is that a dad?"

Silas considered the question with great seriousness. "Yeah. That's dad."

Ciaran tilted his head. After a moment, he picked up his crayon and added a pair of glasses to the figure.

"Now he looks more like Uncle Matthew."

"He is Uncle Matthew," Silas said, with complete confidence.

They looked at each other.

Then both of them burst out laughing.

The sound drifted through the living room and into the kitchen.

Sophie was at the cutting board when Matthew appeared behind her, leaning in to see what she was doing. "Are those supposed to be potato chunks? Here, let me, yours came out looking like french fries last time."

Sophie elbowed him without looking up. "You talk too much."

Matthew laughed and took the knife from her.

Afternoon light came through the kitchen window and turned everything warm gold. The kids' voices floated in from the other room. The pot on the stove bubbled softly. Matthew worked through the potatoes quickly and cleanly, each slice even.

Sophie leaned against the counter and watched him for a moment.

"Matthew."

"Mm?"

"Silas wants you at parent-teacher night on Thursday. Can you make it?"

Matthew's hands paused, just for a beat. Then he smiled.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll be there."

Sophie smiled too. She turned to get the plates.

The light was exactly right.

They had all the time in the world.