Vivian bled out after giving birth. Trent dragged her out the hospital's back door and dumped her by the trash. She died at dawn—a ghost only her daughter Annie could see. Five years later, Trent claimed Annie as his own—to drain her marrow for his stepson. In the group home, five-year-old Annie ripped free and ran to a man in a wheelchair—Damian Calloway, the Reaper no one dared touch. She clung to his leg and screamed: “Daddy, save me!” Damian lost his legs six years ago. Doctors said he could never father a child. He thought Vivian betrayed him. But when the forged DNA report shattered, when the confession recording played, when Annie hummed her mother's lullaby in a thunderstorm—the man who hadn't walked in six years stood up, inch by inch, for his daughter. Trent rotted in prison. Damian knelt at Vivian's grave, Annie in his arms: “All the love she missed, I'll give her twice over.”
