The girl turned around and saw her father sitting inside the black car.

He didn’t look surprised.

That scared her more than anything.

He stepped out slowly, holding an umbrella, his expensive shoes landing in the dirty water beside the boy.

“Give me the notebook,” he said.

The boy hid it behind his back.

The girl stood in front of him.

“No,” she said, her voice shaking. “Tell me who he is.”

Her father looked at her, then at the boy.

For the first time in her life, he didn’t look powerful.

He looked trapped.

“That woman tried to destroy our family,” he said quietly.

The boy’s eyes filled with tears.

“My mom didn’t destroy anything. She waited for you.”

The girl opened the notebook again.

A folded letter fell onto the wet pavement.

She picked it up before her father could stop her.

His voice cracked.

“Don’t read that.”

But she already had.

The first line broke her.

“If my son ever meets his sister, tell her I never wanted money. I only wanted him to know he was loved.”

The girl looked at the boy.

The same eyes.

The same trembling mouth.

The same small scar near the eyebrow, just like her father.

Her father whispered, “I was protecting you.”

She looked at him through tears.

“No. You were hiding him.”

The boy’s voice was barely louder than the rain.

“Is she really my sister?”

The girl knelt beside him and wrapped her coat around his shoulders.

For the first time, nobody pulled him away.

For the first time, someone chose him.

She looked at her father and said, “You lost one child tonight.”

Then she held the boy’s shaking hand.

“But I found my brother.”