They sat like that for a long moment—father, mother, and child—beside the man who had shaped and haunted her life in equal measure. Ethan still had a hundred questions, but one answer was clear enough: She hadn’t run from him, and she wasn’t going to. For now, that was the only thing that mattered.
As they stepped out of the old age home, the weight of grief still pressing on their shoulders, Ethan tightened his hand around Lina’s. The city moved indifferently around them, but he knew their promise mattered most—no more lies, no more shadows. Only truth, love, and beginning again together.