Chapter 33 Longing to See Mason
This was Alvin and Carol’s child. Chloe’s baby brother.
When Alvin had first placed the tiny, red-faced infant into his arms, Nathan had stared down at a face that bore a striking, ghostly resemblance to Chloe.
Back then, standing in the ruins of his life, Nathan had often tortured himself with a single thought: If Chloe were still here, our own child would probably look exactly like this.
From that moment on, Nathan claimed the boy. He raised Mason as his own flesh and blood, shielding him from the world and publicly declaring him as his son.
And just as he promised, Alvin turned his back on his home and drifted across the country like a ghost until the year he died.
He never stopped searching for his daughter. Not for a single, agonizing moment.
He carried a massive, battered black duffel bag stuffed to the brim with missing person flyers, taping them to every diner window and gas station bulletin board he passed. He was chased away by police, cursed at by store owners, and scammed by drifters.
Wearing the exact same pair of sneakers Chloe had bought him for his birthday right before she disappeared, Alvin walked the blistering asphalt of the interstate highways all the way from the East Coast to the West. He knocked on the doors of countless strangers in nowhere towns, desperately begging for any trace of his little girl.
And in the end, he died with a soul full of agonizing regret.
In his final moments, lying in a sterile hospital bed, Alvin wept. His lungs gasped for air, his throat too weak to utter a single word.
But Nathan knew exactly what the old man wanted to say. Alvin didn’t want to close his eyes. He didn’t want to die. He just wanted to hold on a little longer to wait for his daughter, but his body was violently giving out.
Nathan had gripped Alvin’s trembling, calloused hand tightly. He leaned in and made a blood oath. He swore he would wait for Chloe. He swore he would take perfect care of Mason. He swore he would hold the line, no matter how many decades it took, until she finally came home.
Alvin’s hand had gradually lost its desperate strength, the warmth draining away until the harsh, flatline tone of the heart monitor filled the room.
In that hospital room, Nathan was left completely alone with endless sorrow.
Over the last twenty-three years, Nathan had buried four elders. Alvin had been the last. And no matter how many times he stood over a grave, the suffocating pain of losing a loved one never grew duller. It just carved a deeper, colder hollow into his chest.
The sleek silver Bentley pulled up slowly along the curb outside Douglas High School in Chicago.
They had arrived early. The evening air was crisp, and only a few luxury cars were idling along the street, waiting for the evening training sessions to end.
Nathan shifted the car into park and cut the engine. He reached for the box of tissues on the dashboard, pulled out a handful, and quietly pressed them into Chloe’s trembling hands.
He offered no empty words of comfort. He knew better. He knew that right now, nothing he said could possibly stitch her shattered heart back together. She just needed a safe, quiet space to violently weep and release the agonizing guilt of her parents' sacrifices.
The car fell into a heavy, intimate silence. Chloe sobbed into her hands, her shoulders shaking, while Nathan sat perfectly still beside her, his dark eyes watching her, silently handing her fresh tissues whenever she needed them.
Only when her breathing finally began to steady did Nathan speak, his voice a low, gravelly murmur.
"Mason doesn't know he's your brother, Chloe. He has always believed, with absolute certainty, that I am his biological father."
Chloe looked up, her raw eyes widening slightly.
"I never told him the truth about his origins," Nathan confessed, staring out the windshield at the school gates. "And I... I honestly don't know if he would be able to handle it."
He let out a long, heavy sigh.
He had no idea how to even begin to shatter the boy's reality. He had loved and protected Mason fiercely for eighteen years. Now, he was terrified that stripping away his paternity would completely break the boy. Mason was already deeply sensitive about growing up without a mother. Would he survive learning that his entire existence was built on a tragedy, and that his father wasn't even his blood?
"You and Mason have a really strong bond, don't you?" Chloe asked softly, seeing the genuine, protective fear in Nathan’s eyes.
"Yes. Incredibly strong." A faint, quiet pride bled into Nathan's voice. "He's always been so well-behaved and perceptive. He’s brilliant, too—his grades are astronomically better than yours ever were. He consistently ranks in the top three of the honor roll. He plays the piano and the drums beautifully, and now he’s teaching himself guitar."
Nathan’s lips curved into a soft, genuine smile. "Last year, he won first place in the National Youth Go Championship. A grandmaster actually tried to take him on as a private protégé. He has this incredible focus. Unlike most teenage boys, he likes the quiet. He strives for absolute perfection in everything he touches."
Chloe watched the warmth radiating from Nathan’s face, her own chest tightening.
She couldn't help but realize that the boy Nathan was describing sounded exactly like the teenage Nathan she had fallen in love with: brilliant, quiet, gentle, and fiercely devoted.
"He takes care of me, too," Nathan murmured, his eyes stinging with a sudden rush of emotion. "Whenever I’m sick from working too late in the lab, he brings me my medicine. He checks on me in the middle of the night like he’s the adult. People always say raising a child alone is a grueling burden, but I have never felt that way. He kept me breathing, Chloe. All these years... because I had him, I never completely drowned in the isolation."
He loved Mason as fiercely as any father could. He couldn't bear to see the boy hurt.
But Chloe was Mason’s only remaining blood relative. Nathan couldn't deny her the right to claim her family.
"Do you think he’ll be happy when he finds out the truth?" Chloe asked, her voice fragile.
"I don't know," Nathan answered with brutal honesty. "Maybe. But maybe it will destroy him."
"I think it would," Chloe whispered, lowering her head, her mind spinning with a sudden, devastating clarity.
What teenager wants to learn they were only conceived as a backup plan? Who wants to find out their birth parents are dead, making them an orphan overnight? Who wants to realize their dad is just a guardian?
Not even she would want that trauma dumped on her.
Chloe pressed the heels of her hands hard against her swollen eyes. "Forget it," she said firmly. "Let's not tell him. Not yet."
Nathan looked at her, his chest aching with admiration for her selflessness. "Alright," he murmured.
Suddenly, the sharp ring of the evening bell pierced the quiet air, and the campus instantly exploded to life.
Within two minutes, a flood of students poured out of the heavy iron gates. Some zipped by on electric scooters, while others piled into waiting SUVs.
Nathan hadn't warned Mason he was coming, so he stepped out of the Bentley and stood tall by the curb, a commanding, elegant figure in his dark wool coat.
Chloe scrambled out of the passenger side and hurried around the hood to stand beside him.
Her heart was hammering against her ribs. She nervously tugged at the hem of her blouse, then quickly crouched down to use the side mirror to frantically smooth her hair and wipe away the last traces of mascara from her cheeks. She took three deep, shuddering breaths, desperate to look perfect for the baby brother she was about to meet.
"Mason." Nathan raised a hand, his deep voice carrying over the chatter of the crowd.
A tall teenager paused, his head snapping up. The moment he spotted Nathan, his face lit up with a brilliant, surprised smile.
He broke away from his friends and jogged over, his backpack slung over one shoulder. "Dad! What are you doing here?"
Chloe stopped breathing. She stared intently at the boy's face.
He was strikingly handsome, with fair skin and a tall, athletic build. His eyes and brow line were a flawless, carbon copy of Alvin's. But the lower half of his face—the curve of his lips when he smiled—was undeniably Carol’s. It was exactly like Chloe’s own smile.
Seeing the living, breathing echo of her dead parents standing right in front of her nearly sent Chloe spiraling into a breakdown. Tears aggressively threatened to spill. In a sheer panic, she blindly reached out and grabbed the edge of Nathan’s coat, her knuckles turning white as she used him to anchor herself to the earth.
Sensing her distress, Nathan casually reached down and covered her trembling hand with his own, patting it reassuringly. He looked at Mason, his voice effortlessly warm. "You always complain about being starving after practice. I thought I’d take you out for dinner."
"Yes!" Mason beamed. "Where are we going?"
"Taylor Street Steakhouse. Didn't you say you wanted to try it?"
"Awesome! Steak!" Mason’s face was glowing with pure teenage delight.
But then, his dark eyes shifted. They landed on the beautiful, tear-stained woman standing suspiciously close to his father. He noticed the way her fingers were knotted into his dad's coat. He noticed the way his dad's hand was resting protectively over hers.
Mason’s smile vanished instantly. The temperature around the boy seemed to drop ten degrees.
He recognized her. It was the woman from the dinner. The one his dad looked at like she hung the moon.
Mason’s brow furrowed into a sharp, hostile line. "Is she coming too?"
"Yes," Nathan nodded smoothly.
Chloe desperately wanted to say hello, to introduce herself, to hug him—but the words choked in her throat. Instead, she just offered him a nervous, overly eager, watery smile.
Mason stared at her, his eyes cold and assessing. He could sense the heavy, unspoken intimacy radiating between his father and this stranger, and every protective, territorial instinct in his body violently rejected it.
Without offering a single word of greeting, Mason looked away from Chloe in utter dismissal.
"It's late," Mason told his father, his voice tight with displeasure. "Shouldn't she just go home?"
"It's fine. We'll drop her off after we eat," Nathan replied, catching the sharp edge in his son's tone.
"Oh." Mason's expression darkened completely. His impeccable upbringing stopped him from throwing a tantrum, but his absolute distaste for her presence was suffocatingly clear.
Without another word, the teenager turned his back on Chloe, yanked open the rear door of the Bentley, and slid into the back seat, slamming the door shut behind him.