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“On what?” Vic cuts in, asking what we’re all thinking.

Henry plants his hands on his hips, shoulders squared like he's bracing for impact. He drags in a breath, slow and jagged, like it scrapes on the way down.

“Not a what,” he says, voice hoarse. “A who.”

The room stills. Time seems to thin.

“It was a child.” His voice cracks just enough to make my stomach drop. “A little boy,” he adds, quieter now. “Living out there. Alone. In the fucking woods. Like a God damn stray.”

The words hit like a slap. No one breathes. My ears start to ring. I can feel the blood drain from my face, my fingers going numb around the edge of the counter.

Henry glances toward Charlie and Bash—and that’s when it lands. Really lands.

The room goes dead silent for a split second, the shock violent. Then all hell breaks loose.

Everyone’s shouting, overlapping, trying to process what they just heard, asking questions with no answers. The chaos is deafening, and I’m caught somewhere in the middle of it all, my heart thumping hard in my chest. But Henry doesn’t flinch—he just stands there, eyes narrowed, jaw set.

I can feel the anger crackling in the air, a storm waiting to burst. My hands ball into fists, and I’m just about to say something when Bash cuts in, his small voice silencing everyone. “Why would someone leave him out there daddy?”

It’s small. Soft. But it hits like a wrecking ball.

The room collapses into silence again, a different kind this time—heavier. Grief-laced. Shaken.

My sister finds my hand and squeezes it, and we all turn to watch Maddox push his glasses up, his face taut. He crouches down until he’s eye-level with his son.

“I don’t know, Sebastian,” he says, quiet and steady. “But how about we all take a breath and let Uncle Henry tell us a little more, alright?”

He scoops Bash up into his arms, settles beside Evie, and without a word, Charlie climbs into his lap too—curling in close like the weight of what’s just been said is too big for little shoulders to carry alone.

Then, gently but firmly, Maggie speaks. “What have you found out about him?”

“His name is Dallas Murphy. He’s nine years old. He’s run from four group homes in the last two years.”

The second Henry says it, something inside me stops.

Dallas Murphy.

Two words.

That name doesn’t just land—it detonates.

My ears ring. My heart stumbles. The room around me blurs at the edges, like I’ve stepped off solid ground and into a memory I wasn’t ready to relive.

Murphy.

My daddy’s name.

The man who smelled like cedarwood and motor oil. Who made pancakes every Sunday and told the worst damn jokes just to hear me laugh. He was my first safe place. My only safe place, and now that name—his name—is tied to a little boy who’s been passed around and left behind. A boy found alone in the woods like something no one wanted.

It makes my stomach turn. Makes my chest burn.

It’s not just a coincidence. It feels like the universe reached into my ribcage and twisted as hard as it possibly could.

Dallas Murphy.

My daddy would’ve never let a kid go through that. He would’ve raised hell first. He would’ve carved a place in the world for him and guarded it with his life.

Now, I can’t unhear it. I can’t unsee the name. It keeps echoing through my skull like a cruel trick.