I collapsed onto the floor. The edges of my vision went dark. Maya rushed over, her little brow furrowed in concern, asking if mommy was okay. I looked at this beautiful, sweet girl—the girl I had nursed, rocked to sleep, and loved with every fiber of my being for three years.

“The baby in the photograph,” the detective’s voice echoed from the floor. “She isn’t yours. She belongs to a woman named Sarah Jenkins, who was told her baby died of sudden respiratory failure in the nursery. We’ve been looking for her daughter for three years.”

Mark had known. For three entire years, he had watched me raise a stolen child. He had watched me kiss the birthmark of a baby he bought from a monster to cover up the tragic death of our real daughter. The distant looks, the guilt in his eyes—it wasn’t about missing the birth. It was because he was looking at a kidnapped child.

I sat there on the floor, holding Maya so tightly she giggled, unaware that our entire lives were about to be ripped apart. I knew the police were on their way. I knew Sarah Jenkins was out there, mourning a child who was currently sitting in my living room playing with wooden blocks. I knew Mark would be going to prison.

But worst of all, I knew that in a matter of hours, I was going to have to hand over the only child I had ever known, and mourn a biological daughter I never even got the chance to hold.