Nico stabilizes, but the doctor’s face stays serious.
He tells you Nico is dehydrated and underfed, but alive, and the word alive sounds like a miracle with stitches.
Alba watches through the glass, hands pressed to the window like she can hold him with fingertips.
Then comes the line you knew would arrive: “We need to place them under temporary protective custody.”
The social worker says it gently, but Alba hears only the word custody.
She turns to run.
Your body moves before your mind does, stepping into her path without grabbing her.
“Alba,” you say, voice firm now, “look at me.”
She’s shaking, ready to bite, ready to disappear into the streets again.
“They’re going to separate us,” she spits.
You swallow. “Not if I can help it,” you reply.
The social worker raises an eyebrow.
You stand and speak the words that feel like stepping off a cliff.
“I want to become their emergency guardian,” you say.
The room goes quiet.
Your own words echo inside you.
Emergency guardian.
You didn’t plan to say it today.
You didn’t plan to say it ever.
But here it is, spoken out loud, and it changes your life at the speed of breath.
The social worker studies you.
“Do you have experience with children?” she asks.
You want to answer honestly: no.
Instead, you answer what matters: “I have resources,” you say. “And I have no interest in harming them. I want them safe.”
Alba stares at you like she’s trying to decide if you’re real.
“Why?” she whispers again.
This time, you don’t give a speech.
You just say, “Because someone should have stopped for you sooner.”
Paperwork becomes a storm.
Background checks. Interviews. Temporary placement rules.
Your lawyer gets called. Your assistants get called.
Your life, the one built on control, suddenly has to make room for the unpredictable.
And while adults argue over forms, Alba sits on a plastic chair, legs swinging slightly because she’s still a child, no matter how hard she tries not to be.
She watches you sign documents with steady hands.
She watches nurses look at you differently when they hear your name.
She starts to understand that your power isn’t just money, it’s access.
That night, when they allow Nico to be discharged with strict instructions, you drive them to your home.
You tell yourself it’s temporary.
You tell yourself you’re just stabilizing them until the state decides.
But the moment Alba steps into your mansion and sees the echoing halls, her face tightens.
“This is a trap,” she whispers.
You kneel again.
“It’s a house,” you say. “And it’s too big. That’s why it needs you in it.”
Alba doesn’t smile, but her eyes soften a fraction.
In the guest room you set up, Alba refuses to let Nico out of her arms.
You bring food, simple, warm, not fancy.
She eats like someone who’s been punished for being hungry.
When Nico finally sleeps in a crib, Alba stays awake, sitting on the floor beside it, eyes wide and alert.
You sit in the doorway and realize something:
The emptiness in your house wasn’t an architectural problem.
It was a life problem.
And now life has arrived, messy and loud and fragile.
Days later, the police find the abandoned building again and uncover more.
A backpack with a child’s drawings.
A broken phone.
A note with a name and a number that leads nowhere.
The mother is missing, and missing means either running or being erased.
The social worker tells you it could take months to sort out custody.
Alba hears that and tenses like she’s about to lose everything again.
You sit with her at the kitchen table and say, “You’re not going back there.”
She looks at you, suspicious.
“You can’t promise that,” she whispers.
You nod.
“You’re right,” you say. “I can’t promise what the world does.”
Then you add, “But I can promise what I do.”
It’s the first promise that doesn’t feel like a lie.
Over the next weeks, you learn things you never learned in boardrooms.
How to make mac and cheese without burning it.
How to read bedtime stories without your voice sounding like a contract.
How to wake up at 3 a.m. because a baby cries and not resent the interruption.
