?Chapter 1056:


    A paternity test risked exposing his shame, stripping away what little pride he had left. So Ferris simply ignored Eric entirely, treating him like a ghost. Pitying servants slipped him scraps to eat, and somehow, he survived. As he grew, Eric learned that his mother was the madwoman confined in the estate’s shadowed corner.


    Whenever Ferris visited her, he would return in a rage and take it out on Eric,shing him with a whip. At first, Eric would cry out, “Dad, it hurts! Please stop! I’ll behave!” But Ferris was unmoved.


    “Don’t call me that!” he would sneer. “You’re nothing but a bastard, unfit to im me as your father.” So Eric stopped speaking.


    Even as the whip tore his skin and left him bloodied, he never called Ferris “dad” again, nor begged for mercy.


    “Bastard!”


    “You’re just like your mother—a worthless stain!”


    “Why don’t you die? How dare you still breathe?”


    Eric was trapped in the nightmare, his face contorted, shaking his head. “No… no…”


    With a sharp gasp, he jolted awake, bolting upright on the couch, chest heaving. His heart pounded rapidly, sweat soaking his brow and clinging to his shirt.


    The scars on his back, etched by Ferris’s cruelty, seemed to pulse with a faint, lingering pain. His head pounded. Eric pressed a hand to his temple, and then staggered to his feet, crossing to the liquor cab. He grabbed a bottle, twisted it open, and took a long gulp, the burn snapping him back to rity.


    Looking back, he realized that without meeting Ernest and being weed into the Flynn family, he’d never have known what it meant to live like a human being.


    He had found family, friends, education, and purpose—things to cherish and responsibilities to uphold. But now, the Flynn family had cast him out.


    A cold glint flickered in Eric’s eyes as he set the bottle down. He gave a wry smile. “Borrowed joy alwayses with a price…” He had never truly belonged to the Flynns. N was right; he was nothing more than an imposter!


    But he had a family of his own!


    Eric’s thoughts turned to Hadley and Joy—their warmth, Hadley’s grace, Joy’s infectiousughter. His beloved and his daughter!


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    Yet doubt gnawed at him. Would Hadley still want him? He wasn’t Ernest, born to privilege and prestige. He was a stand-in, a nobody. Even the name “Eric” didn’t really belong to him…


    “Hadley… Hadley…” He murmured her name like a mantra, raising the bottle again and drinking deeply.


    Meanwhile, Hadley had been preupied for days. Whenever she had a moment to herself, Brady’s words kept reying in her mind.


    “Hadley, I can help you.”


    “Hadley, let me make this right.”


    That night, after tucking Joy into bed, Hadley stared at her daughter’s peaceful face and made up her mind. She retrieved the business card Brady had slipped her, opened her phone, and added him on WhatsApp.


    “Is this you, Hadley?” Brady messaged almost instantly.


    “Yeah, it’s me. When can we meet?” she replied.


    “Whenever works for you. You name the time.”


    “Very well. Tomorrow, 2 PM, at the hospital.”


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