Anton took a long pull of his coffee. The warm liquid ran down his throat, but the half pot he’d drunk so far wasn’t enough to make him feel more awake. He hadn’t slept well the night before and the thoughts of Hannah that kept him up all night still plagued him this morning.

He could not get his mind off her, hard as he tried. His mind went over every detail of their night together. But it also replayed every moment of their earlier relationship together. And in the most vivid detail—their ride in the limo—kept coming back, exciting him over and over again.

He tried to read the paper, but had to reread whole paragraphs over as his mind drifted back to Hannah. So many of his feelings had resurfaced. She seemed to be feeling the same, yet she’d walked away from him.

He couldn’t get over it. Not only had she walked away, she’d resisted him twice now. Once after a hot kissing session outside the restaurant and now, after sleeping with him even, she still didn’t want him? The rejection did not sit well. Anton couldn’t even think of one time he’d been rejected recently, let alone by someone he’d gone out with and slept with. She should be his easily after all that had happened this week.

He’d gone over the conversation so many times, he had it practically memorized now. Maybe his comment about not being ready to be a step-dad had bothered her. But that was after she said they couldn’t have a relationship, so it couldn’t only be that. What had he done wrong?

He’d picked her up in a limo for goodness sake. He’d taken her to one of the most expensive restaurants in all of this part of New Jersey. He’d apologized, he’d said nice things, he’d charmed her. It had worked well enough that she slept with him in the limo, so he couldn’t have gone that wrong in his approach. Yet he was here alone with no hint of a promise that he’d see her again.

When the thoughts became too much, he threw the newspaper aside and grabbed his laptop. Then he entered her name in the search bar and started reading through results. He wanted to find a profile or something online with photos. He wanted to see her, even if this was the only way he could.

He poked around a little and clicked on several other Hannah Malcoms until he found her. And there she was, with her daughter. He opened the tab where all her photos were located and started scrolling through them.

Apparently, her new employers posted something on their page about hiring her. There was a photo of her wearing the same blue dress he’d seen her in at the restaurant. She gave a simple smile, but it was beautiful.

There were photos of her at events and during holidays, but most were her and her daughter just hanging around the house. She had said something about not getting out much, and her photos confirmed that. She wasn’t like most women he looked up online who had feeds full of selfies and pics with friends when they were out partying. There wasn’t a single pic of her partying, and the only photos of her alone were those other people had taken.

There were many of just her daughter that Hannah had likely taken. Melody was the girl’s name. He opened a few to get a better look. She looked a lot like Hannah. Melody was only a few years younger than the age Hannah had been when he’d first met her in high school. It was obvious. She could almost pass for Hannah back then.

As he kept looking through the photos, something about the girl bothered him. He couldn’t quite put his finger on it until he landed on one specific photo. There was nothing special about the photo itself. It was Melody standing in front of their apartment building, but the lighting was dim, like it had been taken in the evening. Something about the way the warmer light hit her face made him see it.

She looked like Hannah, sure. But she also looked like him. In this one photo, he recalled a photo of himself close to her age, and there were many similarities between them. The set of her eyes, the shape of her mouth. Those weren’t Hannah’s. They were his.

Anton’s mind spun as he started thinking. He clicked back through the photos to get to one he’d already looked at. One of Melody at her birthday. She’d turned nine. He looked at the date of her party. The party might not have been right on her birthday, but he was pretty sure it was sometime in July. He calculated back. That would mean Hannah got pregnant sometime in October. When he’d still been in New York with her.

They’d slept together in October. He knew this for a fact because his own birthday was in October and they’d celebrated together. He had left just two months later. And when he’d seen her that May, he hadn’t thought about how much time had passed. Or maybe he didn’t know what seven months pregnant looked like. There was no way Melody could be that other guy’s.

Unless Hannah cheated on him, Melody was his. He’d never suspected Hannah of cheating. She wasn’t like that. Plus, there was the undeniable fact the Melody looked like him. As if on a mission, he clicked through every single photo of Melody he could find on Hannah’s page. He saw glimpses of his own family in her face through the years. A certain expression reminded him of his mother. A certain angle of the camera and she was his spitting image.

He sat back, his mind ready to explode. How could this be? There must be some mistake. Surely, if Hannah had gotten pregnant by him, she would have told him. If not back then, she would have said something now, wouldn’t she? Didn’t she want Melody to have a father?

Anton got up and paced. What should he do now? Call her? He had to call her. He had to at least know for sure. But she wanted nothing to do with him. Maybe this was the reason why. Maybe his comment about not being ready to be a father had scared her away. He couldn’t blame her. When he looked back on their time together, nothing about him or his lifestyle screamed steady, reliable husband and father. Quite the opposite. She knew he was a charmer. And she didn’t want that in a father for her daughter, apparently.

The anger rose in his chest. How dare she keep this from him? How dare she keep his child from him? He could have been there for her. He could have been there for every moment of his daughter’s life. If only he’d known he had a daughter.

As he paced, the paper sitting on the table caught his eye. Or rather, the headline did. It read, “Two Dead in Apparent Murder.” There were two photos—one of each victim. Sergio and Benito Lopez. Brothers. He recognized the names and the faces. They were the two men his grandfather had ordered to be killed a few days ago. Right before he’d seen Hannah walk into the restaurant. He’d been so distracted by her, that he hadn’t thought too much about the pending hit.

Now he looked at their faces. What was worse was the photos of their family. Losing two men from one family had been devastating, the paper claimed. In the photo, the wives of the brothers clung to each other as they sobbed. A small group of kids stood around them, looking dazed and teary eyed.

He flipped the paper over. He couldn’t stand thinking about that now. Seeing the devastated faces of the family of the men his family killed. It may have been business, but these lives were permanently altered, their kids permanently messed up.

Maybe he’d never get to the point his grandfather had reached where lives didn’t matter that much. It was nothing for Grandfather to order a hit and kill a few men who did him wrong. Anton didn’t want to be that heartless. He didn’t want to carelessly ruin whole families. It shouldn’t have to be this way.

In his disgust, he grabbed the paper and stormed out the door.