“Yes,” Arthur said. “The Albuquerque mark.”
Amanda clutched her daughter.
“What does that mean?”
Arthur looked at her—not as a boss, but as a wounded man.
“It means she’s family. It means Roberto lied.”
Excuses came too late. The truth breathed quietly in Amanda’s arms.
“You knew,” Arthur said to his brother. It wasn’t a question.
Roberto tried to justify himself. Arthur cut him off.
“You denied your daughter. Let her go hungry while you wasted money. You called her ‘that thing.’ And now you want to be a father?”
He called Legal. Security. The room became an improvised courtroom.
“Tomorrow we begin legal recognition—and termination of parental rights for abandonment,” Arthur ordered.
“You can’t take my daughter!” Roberto yelled.
Arthur stood, his voice cracking just slightly.
“I spent five years praying my daughter would come back. And you had a living daughter… and threw her away.”
Roberto was escorted out, screaming fading behind closed doors.
Silence fell. Amanda finally cried—deep, exhausted sobs.
Arthur waited.
“You don’t have to clean bathrooms forever,” he said gently. “I can give you a real job. A fair salary. A future.”
She trembled.
“Sir… I don’t know what to say.”
Arthur took a breath.
“Tonight, you and Bia will stay at my house.”
“What? No— that’s too much.”
“It’s not a favor. It’s protection,” he said. “Roberto is reckless. I won’t risk the child.”
Amanda hesitated. Rich men never offer without reason.
But Bia, exhausted, curled her hand into Arthur’s suit—safe.
“I won’t take your daughter,” Arthur said, meeting her eyes. “A mother is everything. I learned that the worst way.”
“I’m so sorry…”
“I’ll protect you. Whether you like it or not.”
That night, the car took them to Amanda’s neighborhood. Arthur saw it without judgment.
“Leave that,” he said as she packed their few things. “We’ll buy new.”
“It still works—”
“Please,” he said softly. And that word broke her last resistance.
“My niece deserves what she should’ve had.”
My niece.
On the drive, Bia woke briefly, leaned against Arthur’s shoulder, and slept again. Arthur’s face held pain and relief intertwined.
Days passed. The house filled with laughter. Arthur watched from afar—until one night, Bia climbed onto his lap and fell asleep there.
Amanda froze.
“Let her,” Arthur whispered.
He cried that night. For the first time in five years.
The DNA confirmed Roberto’s paternity—and his abandonment. Amanda got full custody.
The house became a home.
Six months later, Arthur asked quietly:
“Are you happy here?”
“Yes,” Amanda said.
“Then… will you stay forever?”
“Marry me,” he said.
“I love you.”
“Yes,” she whispered.
And from one desperate rainy night, a family was born.
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