“Cancel everything,” Harrison ordered.
“Sir, that neighborhood isn’t safe,” Grant warned.
“Now.”
The ride across the Brooklyn Bridge felt like traveling between two different countries. Skyscrapers gave way to worn brick buildings, tangled wires, cracked sidewalks. Harrison watched the girl—her name was Lily—twist a strand of hair around her finger exactly the way Isabella used to.
They stopped in front of a peeling apartment building with rusted railings.
“She’s on the third floor,” Lily whispered.
Grant carried Harrison up the narrow stairs. The hallway smelled of mildew and cheap cooking oil. Lily knocked gently.
“Mom, it’s me.”
Locks clicked. The door opened.
There she was.
Isabella Whitmore, no longer the fiery seventeen-year-old he remembered but a pale, fragile twenty-nine-year-old woman. Dark circles framed her once-bright eyes. Her hair was pulled back carelessly. Yet she was unmistakably his daughter.
When she saw him, all the color drained from her face.
“No,” she breathed. “You can’t be here.”
She collapsed to her knees, sobbing. Harrison motioned for Grant to help him down. He didn’t care about the grime soaking into his expensive suit.
“Bella… please…”
“Don’t call me that!” she cried. “You lost the right when you told me to choose!”
The memory slammed into him. Her pregnancy. His fury. His obsession with reputation. “Either that boy or this family,” he had said.
“You made me choose between you and my child!” Isabella shouted. “And I chose my daughter.”
“I was wrong,” Harrison whispered. “I was cruel. I thought I was protecting our name. Instead, I destroyed my own family.”
Lily clung to her mother.
“Lily’s father died three years ago,” Isabella continued, her voice trembling. “Construction accident. He loved us. We were poor, but we were happy. Then he was gone. I got sick. And now my daughter begs so I can afford medicine.”
Each word cut deeper than any business loss ever had.
“Your mother passed away two years ago,” Harrison said quietly.
Isabella froze. “Mom?”
“Cancer. Her last wish was that I find you. I waited too long.”
Silence settled heavy between them.
“I’m not here to buy forgiveness,” Harrison said. “I don’t deserve it. But Lily deserves better. Let me help. Not as a businessman. As your father.”