“We ran facial recognition on the photos you sent—pushed them through old school yearbooks, adoption registries, even grainy newspaper clippings. Some hits came up. One face kept reappearing.”
“Bozhe moy (my God),” I cut in. “Slow down, man. Facial what?”
Rothman sighed on the other end. “Facial recognition. Computer matches faces in databases.”
“Da, da. I get it. Just… speak like normal person. You know my English not perfect.”
A quiet chuckle. “You should really work on that, by the way.”
“Shut up,” I muttered. “What do you have?”
There was a pause.
“I think I found her.”
I couldn’t breathe.
“Name’s Mila Harrington. Adopted at age three. Private agency. She’s in New York now. Studying architecture.”
My ears rang as if someone had slammed a door inside my skull.
Rothman didn’t stop. “I’m sending you a photo now—teenage years, from a charity scholarship event. School publication.”
My phone buzzed again. I opened the image.
And the world stopped.
My throat tightened as I stared at the screen, half-convinced my mind was playing tricks on me. For a second I couldn’t even breathe. My thumb hovered over the phone as if the picture might disappear if I moved too fast.
This girl in the photo was nearly grown. Her face softer, her features sharper, the roundness of childhood long gone.
But there was no world where I wouldn’t recognize those eyes.
My eyes.
My baby sister’s eyes.
I hadn’t seen that face since she was three—since the day I looked away to kick a ball and lost her. But it was her. No doubt in my mind. My knees nearly gave out.
My voice cracked, thick with disbelief. “She’s alive... she’s really alive.”
It hit all at once. Relief so sharp it carved through me. Grief like a blade to the gut. My chest folded inward under theweight. I had imagined this moment a thousand different ways, but I wasn’t ready for the actual ache of it. Seeing her face. Knowing she was breathing, walking, living—somewhere out there, untouched by the filth I lived in.
I wanted to fall to my knees. I wanted to cry, to scream, to smash everything in sight and thank the universe at the same time.
“She was placed with a good family,” Rothman said quietly. “All records point to normal upbringing. No red flags. She’s safe, Maksym. She had a life.”
I didn’t speak. Couldn’t. My throat locked up, as if words would shatter the moment.
“I’m going to say this once,” he continued. “If you care about her—really care—you’ll stay the fuck away. Don’t drag her back into your world. You touch her life, you destroy it.”
“I just need to see her. One time,” I said, my voice hoarse, blinking the tears away.
“You don’t mean that.”
I didn’t. One look would never be enough. I already knew that.
But I said it anyway. “One time.”
