“You had your embryos implanted in Emily without her informed consent.”

Emily swayed.

I reached for her, but she stepped back on instinct, still protecting the babies.

Ashley’s attorneys looked as shocked as we were.

Grant Wilkes whispered, “Ashley…”

She turned on him. “Don’t.”

“You told me there was a custody irregularity. You did not disclose—”

“I said don’t.”

Her voice was a blade.

I could barely breathe.

The twins.

My children.

Maybe not Emily’s genetically.

Maybe not mine.

Or maybe half mine.

I didn’t know anymore.

Everything had become smoke.

I looked at Ashley.

“Are they mine?”

She met my eyes.

And for the first time, she didn’t smile.

“That depends on what you mean by yours.”

My hands shook.

“Answer me.”

She swallowed.

“You donated samples years ago during treatment with Emily.”

I remembered.

Of course I remembered.

The sterile rooms. The medical containers. The embarrassment. The hope.

Ashley’s voice lowered.

“Paula had access.”

Emily made a broken sound.

I stepped toward Ashley.

“You used my sperm?”

Her eyes glittered.

“I used what should have been mine after we got married.”

The words turned my stomach.

Grant Wilkes stepped back as if he no longer wanted to stand near her.

David said quietly, “That confession was also recorded.”

Ashley’s face went blank.

Then she lunged.

Not at David.

At Emily.

It happened so fast I barely saw it.

Ashley moved across the gravel with a sound somewhere between a scream and a sob, her hands reaching for one of the babies.

“She doesn’t get to keep them!”

I caught her before she reached Emily.

Ashley fought like someone possessed, nails scraping my neck, shoes sliding in the dirt. Emily stumbled backward, clutching the twins and crying out.

Shelter staff rushed from the building.

David grabbed Ashley’s arms.

Her attorneys shouted.

The babies screamed.

And beneath it all, Ashley kept repeating the same words.

“They’re mine. They’re mine. They’re mine.”

When the police arrived twenty minutes later, Ashley had gone silent.

She sat on the curb beside the SUV, wrists cuffed behind her back, hair fallen loose around her face. Dust streaked one side of her cream suit. Her lipstick had smeared.

She looked younger somehow.

And more dangerous.

An officer took Emily’s statement first. Then mine. Then David’s.

The attorneys refused to speak without counsel, though one of them quietly handed his card to the officer and said, “I was not aware of the alleged conduct before tonight.”

Ashley said nothing.

Not while they read her rights.

Not while they placed her in the patrol car.

Not until the door was almost closed.

Then she looked straight at Emily.

“You think this makes you their mother?”

Emily stood frozen.

Ashley leaned toward the open window.

“Wait until you find out what your husband signed before he ever met you.”

The officer shut the door.

The patrol car drove away.

But her words stayed.

They followed us into the shelter.

They sat with us beneath fluorescent lights while the babies finally settled.

They stood between Emily and me when I tried to apologize again.

She sat across from me in a small office with peeling paint and a box fan rattling in the corner. The twins slept in a borrowed bassinet beside her chair.

For a long time, neither of us spoke.

I had imagined this moment so many times on the drive from Savannah.

I thought I would explain. Apologize. Beg.

But now the truth was bigger than my guilt.

It had swallowed all of us.

“I should have found you,” I said finally.

Emily stared down at her hands.