Her chair scraped back loudly against the polished floor as she stood, her legs unsteady. “What are your names?” she asked, her voice shaking uncontrollably now.

The boys exchanged a quick, wary look, the universal language of children who had learned to be cautious.

“I’m Leo,” the taller one said, his eyes darting toward the exit. “This is Eli.”

Emma swallowed, the sound loud in her own ears. Her sons’ names were Liam and Ethan. Leo and Eli. So close. So impossibly, cruelly close.

Yet something in her gut, a primal mother’s instinct she hadn’t felt in years, screamed that this was not a coincidence at all.