Chapter 3 - THE KNOCK AT THE DOOR
Morning broke with a harsh, unyielding light, and with it came the reality of the waking world. At 8:00 AM, the heavy oak front doors of Nathan's estate rattled under the weight of a heavy, authoritative knock. Elelliana woke with a start, her heart hammering against her ribs, instinctively throwing her arms over the crib where her brothers slept. Nathan answered the door in a crisp suit, his expression carved from stone. Standing on his porch were two police officers and a stern-faced woman from Child Protective Services, flanked by a man Elelliana recognized with a jolt of pure terror. It was Uncle Marcus.
Marcus was the relative who had slammed the door in her face three weeks ago, claiming the twins were "too much trouble" and she was "a lost cause." Now, seeing the billionaire's mansion, Marcus’s eyes were alight with greedy calculation. He had seen the viral security footage from the grocery store—leaked online by a bystander—and realized his discarded niece was currently sitting on a goldmine. "That's my flesh and blood," Marcus declared to the police, projecting a tone of wounded family pride. "This man abducted them." Nathan didn't raise his voice, but the temperature in the foyer seemed to drop ten degrees. "You abandoned them to freeze, Marcus. I have the security footage of her begging on the street while you drank away your paycheck." But the law was a rigid machine. CPS had a mandate. Despite Nathan's high-powered attorneys arriving in a flurry of briefcases and injunctions, the state required the children to be placed in the system while the custody dispute was untangled. Elelliana was pulled from Nathan’s house, screaming for her brothers, as the system tore them apart.
