Chapter 125 The results
The DNA test took two weeks.
The longest two weeks of Lily’s life.
She researched obsessively. Found Anna Martin’s obituary, Death certificate, and Catherine’s school records. Everything checked out.
Either it was real or it was the most elaborate network trap ever constructed.
The results came back on a Tuesday.
Marcus delivered them in person.
“99.7% probability,” he said. “Catherine is Lily’s half-sister. Catherine Frost faked her death, lived as Anna Martin for fifteen years, and died three years ago of actual cancer.”
Lily sat down hard.
“My mom was alive,” she said. “For twelve years after I thought she died. She was alive and I could have…”
Aiden pulled her close. “She chose to protect us. She thought that’s what love looked like.”
“It’s what abandonment looks like.”
“It’s both,” Ariella said quietly. “Love and abandonment aren’t opposites. Sometimes they’re the same thing from different angles.”
“I don’t want profound wisdom. I want my mom back.”
“I know, sweetheart. I know.”
They sat in the bakery kitchen, their safe place and grieved Again. Differently.
For the mother they’d lost twice.
And for the girl in Montana who’d just learned her entire life was constructed around a lie.
Two days later, they flew to Montana.
Catherine met them at the airport. Small. Scared. Fourteen and trying to be brave.
Lily walked straight to her. Hugged her.
“Hi,” Lily said. “I’m your sister. Apparently.”
“Apparently,” Catherine managed.
They looked nothing alike. Lily was tall, dark-haired, Richard’s features. Catherine was small, light-haired, all Catherine Senior.
But they had the same tilt to their smile. The same way of holding grief.
“This is weird,” Catherine said.
“So weird,” Lily agreed.
“But…good weird?”
“Yeah. Good weird.”
Aiden stood back. Watching these two girls, his sisters, apparently meet for the first time.
“You okay?” Ariella asked him quietly.
“No. But I will be.” He looked at her. “We’re adopting her, right? Catherine. She’s fourteen. She needs a family. We’re we’re doing that?”
“If she wants us to.”
“Do I get a vote?” Elena asked. She’d insisted on coming. Was currently holding Ethan and explaining the situation to him in four-year-old logic. “Because I vote yes. I want another aunt.”
“You have a lot of aunts,” Ariella said.
“I want more. Aunts are great.”
Catherine overheard. Smiled through tears. “I vote yes too.”
So they did it.
Legal guardianship. Montana to New York. Catherine Frost who’d been Catherine Martin for fourteen years coming home to a family she’d never met but somehow belonged to.
Messy. Complicated. Perfect.
Very Frost of them.
That night, in their Montana hotel, Ariella found Aiden on the balcony.
“Penny for your thoughts?”
“Just thinking about my mother. How she gave up everything to protect us. How she died alone in Montana so we could be safe.” His voice was rough. “I’m angry at her. For leaving. But I’m also grateful. She sacrificed everything. Including us. To keep us alive.”
“That’s love,” Ariella said. “The terrible kind that costs everything.”
“Do you think we’d do that? Give up our kids to protect them?”
“I hope we never have to find out.”
They stood together. Montana sky endless above them. A new sister sleeping inside. Their children safe in New York. Their family expanding in ways they’d never planned.
“Five years,” Aiden said. “Five years since the contract. Since we were forced together. And now…”
“Now we choose each other,” Ariella finished. “Every day. Messily. Imperfectly. But real.”
“Very real.”
“Very Frost.”
“In the best way.”
They stayed on the balcony until the stars came out.
Still invisible in New York.
But here, in Montana, brilliant.
Proof that light existed.
Even when you couldn’t see it.
Even when you’d stopped looking.
It was still there.
Waiting.
Like family.
Like hope.
Like home.