Chapter 46 Chapter 46

Chapter 46 Chapter 46


Dominic's Pov

The door slammed behind me with a hollow thud that echoed too loud in the quiet of my apartment.

I didn’t bother with the lights.

My jacket hit the floor somewhere near the couch. My keys clattered against the kitchen counter, a metallic sting that stabbed through the stillness. I stood there in the darkness, the only sound my uneven breathing. My skin still burned from the venom in Liana’s voice, the look in her eyes when she told me I had no right.

She was right.

I paced the floor, back and forth, a silent war playing out beneath my skin. My heart had been on a battlefield all morning, and now I felt like I was walking through the wreckage—every memory, every word, every mistake a shattered piece beneath my feet.

My daughter.

Oh, the word felt foreign in my mouth. Heavy. Fragile. Sacred.

I sank into the couch and leaned forward, elbows on my knees, head in my hands. I wasn’t crying. I didn’t even have tears left. Just this ache in my chest like something had broken open and spilled all over the floor.

"She has your eyes."

That's what Liana hadn't said, but I saw it. In the photo. In the face of the child. Those same wide hazel eyes, so familiar they felt like mirrors to a past I could never return to.

How could I have missed this?

A faint knock broke through the silence. I looked up, startled. Another knock, softer this time.

I dragged myself off the couch and opened the door.

My mother stood there, coat wrapped around her smaller body, carrying one grocery bag in her hand.

"Dom," she said softly, stepping into the apartment before I could say a word. "You didn't answer your phone. I was worried."

"Don't think I did. She didn't get to it."

She gave me one of those looks mothers are born with. The kind that stripped away whatever facade I had going at the moment.

"You saw her?" she asked quietly.

I nodded. Just once. That was all I could manage.

She put the groceries down, her eyes scanning the apartment like she didn’t know what to do with her hands. Then she came over and touched my arm. "Tell me what happened."

So I did. Not everything, not every word Liana said or every thought that tore through me on the way home. But enough. The photo. The confrontation. The voice that called from the hallway.

"She was there," I said. "Behind the door. I didn’t see her, but I heard her. She called her 'Mum.' I didn’t even get her name."

My mom sat beside me. She was quiet for a long time.

"I knew there was something you weren't telling me," she murmured. "That photo you showed me. I recognized it in an instant. That child has our family stamped all over her."

I closed my eyes. The weight of shame was like a chain around my neck.

"I should’ve known. I should’ve. I don’t know. Done something differently."

"You were lost back then, Dominic," she said softly. "Drinking, disappearing for weeks, the wrong women. You weren’t yourself. And maybe Liana didn’t trust that you ever would be again."

"She was right not to."

My mom shook her head. "But people grow. People change. That’s the whole point of surviving things. You’re not the man you were back then. And you don’t have to be."

"What if I still am?" My voice came out rough. "What if I step into that kid’s life and mess it all up? What if I hurt her just by being around?"

"Then don’t," she said simply. "Don’t hurt her. Be better. Rise above what you were. You have the chance now. Don't waste it."

I stood up again, restless. I ran a hand over my hair, and walked to the window, looking out over the city, which yawned open beneath a slate-gray sky.

"What if she hates me?"

"She won't. Kids are smarter than we think. She'll see it in your eyes, feel it in your presence. The heart knows its people."

I yearned for that. But belief felt a world away at this moment.

My phone buzzed.

I picked it up instinctively, expecting nothing.

It was from Liana.

Only one message.

You can meet her tomorrow. After school. Just the two of you.

My fingers tightened around the phone, as if it might slip through and vanish like a dream I wasn't ready to wake from.

Tomorrow.

My throat went dry. My stomach twisted.

Tomorrow I would see her.

I would see my daughter.

I wanted to shout. I wanted to laugh. I wanted to run. But all I could do was stand there, the screen glowing like a promise I wasn’t sure I deserved.

My mom was watching me.

"It’s happening, isn’t it?"

I nodded.

"Good." She smiled faintly. "Don’t screw it up."

I laughed, but it wasn’t from amusement. It was from disbelief. From the sheer weight of everything pressing in on me.

"I don’t even know how to talk to a kid," I said. "I don’t know what she likes or what she hates. I don’t know what she dreams about. What makes her laugh. I don’t know anything."

"That’s why you show up," she said. "That’s how you learn. You listen. You make space. She doesn’t need perfection. She needs presence."

I leaned against the window. I felt cracked open in ways I hadn't felt since I was a kid myself.

I used to think my life was too broken to be a home for anything good. That maybe all I was meant to do was pass through people's lives like a storm and leave them better off in my absence.

But now.

Now there was this girl.

My daughter.

And she had no idea who I was.

Tomorrow she would.

I turned to my mom. "What if I fail?"

"Then you try again the next day," she said. "And the next. And the next. That’s what being a father means. You show up even when you’re scared. You love even when it’s hard."

I nodded slowly.

She reached over and squeezed my hand.

"And one day," she said, "she’ll look at you like you’re the safest place in the world. Because you will be."

I held onto those words like they were the only thing keeping me afloat.

The night passed slowly.

I didn’t sleep much.

But when the first threads of light crept through the blinds, I stood at the edge of something new. Not redemption. Not yet.

But the beginning of it.

And maybe that was enough.