He swallowed hard, eyes shimmering. “I was recruited as a courier for intelligence that the Allies couldn’t let fall into enemy hands. People were hunting us. If they knew about her, about the baby she was carrying…they would have used them to get to me. My survival depended on vanishing.”
He looked down, voice cracking. “After the war, I learned she’d rebuilt her life. She thought I was dead. She married. Had a family. The government forbade any contact, and I thought… I thought leaving her in peace was kinder than tearing her world open again.” Tears slipped down his cheeks unchecked.