My Son Ran to the Billionaire Who Abandoned Us

I'm wiping down the kitchen counter when I realize Junior isn't making noise.

That's the thing about raising a six-year-old alone—you learn to hear the shape of their silence. There's the good kind, the absorbed-in-Legos kind, where his breathing goes shallow and his world shrinks to whatever he's building. Then there's the other kind. The holding-his-breath kind.

I dry my hands and move toward his room, my socks quiet on the worn hardwood. "Junior? You okay, baby?"

Nothing.

His door is cracked open. I push it wider and find his bed neatly made—too neatly, the corners tucked with a precision that makes my chest tighten. His backpack is gone. The small wooden box where he keeps his treasures—rocks from the park, a keychain from Emir, that tooth he lost last month—sits open on his desk.

Empty.

I'm already moving, checking the bathroom, the living room, calling his name with an edge that brings Teresa out of her bedroom, her reading glasses still perched on her nose.

"What's wrong?"

"Junior's not here."

Her face hardens instantly, that shift from resting suspicion to active alarm. "Did you check—"

"Everywhere." My voice cracks. I hate that it cracks. "His backpack's gone. Teresa, he planned this."

She's already reaching for her phone, but I'm faster, my fingers shaking as I pull up the school's number. It rings four times—four lifetimes—before the secretary's bright voice answers.

"Maple Grove Elementary, how can I—"

"This is Everlee Garcia, Junior Andrews's mother. Is he in class?"

A pause. Keyboard clicks. "Let me check with his teacher... Mrs. Garcia, it looks like Junior was marked absent after recess. We assumed—"

I hang up.

Teresa is watching me with that look, the one that could be anger or fear or both, her mouth a tight line. "Where would he go?"

I don't answer because I don't know, and not knowing is a fist closing around my lungs. Junior is careful. Junior is smart. Junior doesn't run away. Except he just did, with a packed bag and a plan, and I have no idea what I missed.

My phone buzzes. Unknown number. I answer before the first ring finishes.

"Ms. Garcia?" A woman's voice, professional and uncertain. "This is Amanda Reese from Ross Corporation security. We have a... situation. A child showed up in our lobby about twenty minutes ago claiming to be Mr. Ross's son. He has your name listed as his mother in his backpack. We're trying to verify—"

The rest of her words dissolve into static.

Ross Corporation.

Johnny.

I'm going to be sick.

"I'm coming," I manage. "Don't—don't let him leave. I'm coming right now."

Teresa is already grabbing her coat, her face carved from stone. She doesn't ask questions. She knows. Of course she knows—Emir knew, which means Emir told her, which means she's been sitting on this secret for six years, watching me, waiting.

I don't have time to unpack that betrayal.

The subway ride is a blur of fluorescent lights and strangers' faces. I