CHAPTER 182
Ten years later, I stood outside a modest house in Vermont, watching a twenty-year-old young man I barely recognized load boxes into a pickup truck. Michael had grown tall and lean, with the same dark hair as his siblings but none of their unconscious tactical awareness. He moved through the world like someone who'd never had to calculate threat levels or identify escape routes.
He looked normal. Happy. Completely ordinary.
It broke my heart and filled me with pride in equal measure.
"You sure you want to do this?" Harry asked quietly, standing beside me on the tree-lined street that had been Michael's home for the past decade.
"I'm sure I need to do this," I replied. "He deserves to know that his birth family never stopped loving him."
"And if he doesn't want to see us?"
"Then we respect his choice and leave. Just like we've been doing for ten years."
Through the window, I could see Michael's adoptive parents preparing what looked like a going-away party. Their son was starting graduate school at MIT, pursuing environmental engineering that had nothing to do with security systems or tactical planning.
He'd chosen a completely different path from his siblings.
Addison was now thirty-eight and running the Mitchell-Kane Foundation with ruthless efficiency, but she'd never married or formed lasting relationships outside her work. Liam was thirty-five and led anti-trafficking operations across Southeast Asia, living alone and preferring it that way. Elena was thirty and finishing her doctorate in international law, brilliant but socially isolated.
All of them were exactly what we'd trained them to be - exceptional, dedicated, and psychologically incapable of normal human connection.
But Michael was laughing with friends as they helped him pack, his face open and trusting in ways that would have worried our family's security protocols.
"Mrs. Mitchell?" A voice behind us made me turn. Margaret Washington, Michael's adoptive mother, was approaching with the cautious expression of someone who'd spent ten years wondering when this day would come.
"Mrs. Washington," I said, extending my hand. "Thank you for agreeing to this meeting."
"Michael doesn't know you're here yet. I wanted to talk to you first."
She gestured toward a small park across the street, away from the house where Michael was celebrating. As we walked, I could feel Harry's protective presence behind me.
"I need you to understand something," Margaret said once we were seated on a bench. "Michael has had a good life here. A safe life. He's never had to worry about anything more dangerous than whether he studied enough for his chemistry exam."
"I can see that. And I'm grateful to you for giving him that."
"Are you? Because for ten years, I've been waiting for someone from your world to show up and drag him back into whatever danger made you give him up in the first place."
I looked across the street at the young man who was technically my son but had been raised by strangers. "Mrs. Washington, we didn't give Michael up because we didn't love him. We gave him up because we loved him too much to let him become what we are."
"And what are you?"
"People who save other people's children but couldn't figure out how to give our own children normal childhoods."
Margaret was quiet for a moment, studying my face. "He asks about you sometimes. Especially when he was younger. He wanted to know why his birth parents couldn't take care of him."
"What did you tell him?"
"I told him that sometimes parents have to make impossible choices, and that his birth family loved him enough to want him to have opportunities they couldn't provide."
"That's exactly right."
"Is it? Because I've done some research over the years. I know who you are, what your family does. And I have to ask - are you here because you've finally decided you want him back, or because you need him for something?"
The question hit harder than I'd expected. Were we here because we genuinely wanted to reconnect with Michael, or because seeing him choose a normal life made us question everything we'd built our identities around?
"I'm here because he's about to start graduate school, and I wanted him to know that his birth family is proud of him," I said honestly. "I'm not here to ask him to join our work or to pull him back into our world. I just wanted him to know that giving him up was the hardest thing we've ever done."
"And if he wants nothing to do with you?"
"Then we'll respect that and leave him alone. But if he has questions about where he came from, I want him to have that opportunity."
Margaret nodded slowly. "He's a good young man. Kind, intelligent, completely normal in all the ways that matter. But he's also curious about his origins."
"Are you willing to let that happen?"
"I'm willing to let him make that choice for himself. He's twenty years old - old enough to decide whether he wants contact with his birth family."
As we walked back toward the house, I could see Michael more clearly through the window. He was explaining something to friends, gesturing with enthusiasm about whatever environmental project he was planning to pursue.
"There's one thing you should know," Margaret said. "He's been in the same relationship for two years. A young woman named Sarah who's studying to be a teacher. They're planning to get engaged after he finishes his master's degree."
The information hit me like a revelation. Michael had formed exactly the kind of lasting romantic relationship that none of his siblings had ever managed.
"That's wonderful," I said, and meant it completely.
"It is. And I want you to understand that whatever happens in this conversation, I won't let anything jeopardize his happiness."
"Neither will I."
Margaret studied my face one more time, then nodded. "All right. Let me go talk to him."
As she walked toward the house, Harry moved closer to me. "You okay?"
"I'm terrified," I admitted. "What if he hates us for giving him up?"
"Then we'll deal with that. But Skylar, look at him. Really look at him."
I did look at him, and what I saw was everything we'd hoped for when we'd made the impossible decision to let him go. Michael was confident without being hardened, intelligent without being calculating, capable of joy without constantly scanning for threats.
Through the window, I could see Margaret talking to him quietly. His expression shifted from curiosity to surprise to something that might have been anticipation.
Then he looked directly at me through the glass, and I saw recognition in his eyes despite the years and distance.
He knew exactly who we were.
The question was whether he'd choose to let us back into the life we'd given up the right to be part of.
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