Chapter 6 - The Boy Candice Called Her OwnWyatt had grown up believing Candice was his biological mother.
She told him his father abandoned them before his birth. When she married Gabriel, she said Gabriel agreed to treat Wyatt as family but never wanted to adopt him legally.
“That isn’t true,” Gabriel said.
“I asked her about adoption when you were twelve.”
“What did she say?”
“That I didn’t deserve your name.”
Gabriel remembered the conversation differently.
Candice claimed Wyatt wanted to keep the surname of his deceased father.
Every important discussion had passed through her.
“Why did she take you to Cedar Vale?” Gabriel asked.
“She said the woman was her sick cousin.”
“How often?”
“Four or five times.”
“Did Anna always recognize you?”
“Sometimes she screamed. Sometimes she hugged me. Once she asked why I wasn’t with Lucas.”
Wyatt began crying angrily.
“I thought she was confused.”
Gabriel wanted to comfort him, but Wyatt stepped backward.
“I hit Lucas.”
“You were pressured.”
“I still did it.”
“Why?”
“Candice said he was trying to replace me. She said if he stayed, you would send me away.”
Lucas had been told Wyatt hated him.
Wyatt had been told Lucas wanted him gone.
Candice built each boy’s fear from the other.
Wyatt admitted hiding food near the laundry room and deleting several recordings Candice intended to use against Lucas. But he also struck Lucas hard enough to leave bruises.
“I’m not asking him to forgive me,” Wyatt said.
“You will tell the truth.”
“She’ll destroy me.”
“She has been destroying both of you.”
Evelyn arranged independent DNA collection from Gabriel and Wyatt. Wyatt agreed, though fear remained visible in every movement.
The results would take several days.
Meanwhile, Gabriel and Evelyn opened Anna’s safe-deposit box using the silver key.
Inside were Anna’s original passport, a newborn hospital bracelet marked BABY A—HART, and a small digital recorder.
There was also a sealed envelope addressed to Gabriel.
The letter had been written one week before Anna’s crash.
Gabriel, the hospital lied about our delivery. I heard two babies crying. They let me hold Lucas, then told me the second child died before I could see him. Candice was working in maternity billing that night. She changed departments the next morning.
Gabriel lowered the page.
Candice had never told him she worked at the hospital where Lucas was born.
The letter continued.
Anna discovered duplicate newborn charges, two pediatric identification numbers, and a death certificate without a physician’s original signature.
She believed their second child had been taken.
She asked Candice for help because they were friends.
Candice promised to investigate.
Three months later, Anna’s car went over an embankment.
No body was recovered, but Candice identified Anna’s coat and jewelry from the wreckage.
Candice later became the person who comforted Gabriel.
Two years afterward, they married.
The recorder contained Anna’s conversation with Candice.
Anna’s voice was frightened.
“I know there were twins.”
Candice answered:
“You’re grieving a baby who never lived.”
“I found the second hospital number.”
“You need to stop.”
“Where is my son?”
Candice’s voice became cold.
“You already have the boy the trust requires.”
The recording ended.
Evelyn looked at Gabriel.
“What trust?”
The answer lay inside another document.
Anna’s father had not created one beneficiary account.
He had created equal trusts for twin grandsons.
One trust belonged to Lucas.
The second had been quietly paying expenses for a child identified only as W.H.
May you like
Wyatt Hart.
👉 The safe-deposit box connected Wyatt to Anna’s missing baby, while the trust records showed someone had recognized him as Gabriel’s son for years.
