The unknown number blinked on my phone screen. For some reason, my hand hesitated before answering — like a small part of me already knew this call would tear through the quiet life I had built.

“Hello?” I said, my tone cautious.

“Mr. Donovan?” a woman’s voice asked. She sounded polite, but there was a faint tremor behind her words — the kind people get when they know they’re about to change someone’s world. “My name is Dr. Ruiz. I’m calling from St. Augustine Hospital.”

My throat went dry. Hospitals never call for good reasons.

“Yes, I’m David Donovan,” I replied slowly. “Is everything okay?”

The woman exhaled. “Sir, I’m afraid this is about a young man under our care. He listed you as his emergency contact. His name is Ethan Moore.”

The name hit me like a punch to the chest.

Ethan. The boy I’d thrown out ten years ago.

For a second, I couldn’t breathe.

“I think you’ve made a mistake,” I said, forcing the words through the lump in my throat. “I haven’t seen him in years. Why would he—”

“Sir,” she interrupted softly, “he specifically told us to call you if anything ever happened to him.”

Her words hung in the air like a ghost.

I gripped the phone tighter. “What happened to him?”

“He was in an accident. A construction site collapse. He’s in critical condition.”

Something inside me broke open. Without thinking, I grabbed my car keys and drove like a madman. The city lights blurred outside my windshield as my mind raced with questions I’d spent a decade burying. What kind of life had he lived? Where had he gone that night I told him to leave? Why—why would he still put my number down after what I’d done?

By the time I reached the hospital, my hands were shaking so badly that I could barely sign the visitor log.