Chapter 1

Julian Vance' s black Bentley rolled up the gravel driveway of our Hamptons estate, a sleek, unwelcome shadow on a sunny afternoon.

He stepped out, all expensive linen and a smug smile, a boy trailing behind him, small and pale.

This was Noah.

Julian called him his son.

My son, Ethan, ten years old and already a perfect copy of his mother Victoria' s disdain, spotted them from the porch.

"Look, Dad, it's Uncle Julian," Ethan said, his voice dripping with an eagerness he never showed me.

He ran towards Julian, ignoring the smaller boy completely.

Victoria emerged, a vision in white, her smile reserved for Julian.

I was just Liam, the woodworker, the man who married up.

Ethan, emboldened by his mother' s silent approval, immediately started on Noah.

"Why are you so skinny?" Ethan taunted, poking Noah' s thin arm. "Do you even eat?"

Noah flinched but said nothing, his eyes wide and scared, fixed on the manicured lawn.

Julian watched, amused. Victoria' s lips twitched, a ghost of a smile.

I stepped forward. "Ethan, that's enough."

My voice was quiet but firm. Ethan scowled at me, then looked to Julian for backup.

Later, after Julian and Ethan were inside, Victoria cornered me in the large, sterile kitchen.

Her eyes, usually so sharp and calculating, held a flicker of something I mistook for vulnerability.

"Liam, darling," she began, her voice soft, a tone she rarely used with me anymore.

"There's something I have to tell you about Noah."

She confessed, her words measured, that Noah was the result of a drunken mistake with Julian, years ago, before us.

She begged for my forgiveness, tears welling in her eyes.

My heart, already bruised by years of subtle slights, ached.

But this was my family, or so I believed.

"I forgive you, Victoria," I said, the words tasting like ash. I wanted to believe her, to keep us whole.

A brief, fragile peace settled, or so I thought.

The next day, the peace shattered.

Ethan was "playing" near the outdoor grill, a game he' d never played before.

Noah was with him, a small, hesitant shadow.

I heard a scream, high-pitched and terrified.

I ran.

Flames licked at Noah' s clothes, his small body thrashing.

Ethan stood back, a lighter in his hand, his face a mask of shock that didn't quite reach his eyes.

Later, I would learn Victoria had given him the lighter fluid, the lighter, suggested the "game."

I beat out the flames, my hands burning, and scooped Noah into my arms.

His skin was red, blistered. He was so light.

I raced him to the nearest private hospital, my old smokejumper instincts kicking in, but this was a fire I couldn't just put out.

At the hospital, Noah was stabilized, heavily sedated.

I sat outside his room, head in my hands, the smell of burnt fabric clinging to me.

The door was slightly ajar.

I heard voices, Victoria and Julian. Low, conspiratorial.

"...the switch at that clinic in Monaco was flawless," Victoria said, her voice cold, devoid of the emotion she' d shown me. "No one ever suspected Noah wasn't yours, Julian."

My blood ran cold. Switched?

"And Liam's little swimmers?" Julian' s voice, laced with contempt. "The medication worked perfectly. No more little Liams running around."

Sterilized. They had sterilized me.

My mind reeled. Ethan, my son, wasn't my son. Noah, this broken, burned boy...

"He has to go, Julian," Victoria continued, her tone chillingly practical. "Ethan is the sole heir. We' ll just say his system couldn't handle the shock. Disconnect the life support. It' s cleaner this way."

Kill him. They were going to kill my son.

The world tilted, a sickening lurch. My past, my marriage, my fatherhood – all a lie.

Everything I thought was real crumbled to dust.

I understood then, with a horrifying clarity, that Noah, the frail, abused boy, was mine. My flesh and blood.

And Ethan, the boy I had loved and raised, was theirs, a cuckoo in my nest.