Ceila’s world collapses in on itself the moment the truth crashes over her like a tidal wave, because for months she has lived inside a storm of suspicion, desperation, and misguided fury, convinced that April was the obstacle standing between her and the daughter she believed had been stolen from her, and that belief, twisted by fear and heartbreak, had driven her to commit the unforgivable—threatening April, manipulating her, and finally handing her over to Ray in a reckless attempt to force answers, but now, as she sits alone in the dim light of her cluttered living room with the doctor’s envelope trembling in her hands, the truth slides into place with brutal clarity: the daughter she has been searching for, grieving for, aching for all these years is not some faceless young woman out there in the world waiting to be found, but April’s biological mother, a woman who vanished long ago under circumstances drenched in tragedy, and Ceila realizes in one horrifying, breath-stealing instant that her rage was pointed entirely in the wrong direction. The guilt hits her so violently she nearly collapses, because every cruel word she spoke to April, every threat, every manipulative whisper she fed to Ray now echoes like a scream inside her mind, and she remembers April’s terrified eyes, her trembling voice begging to be understood, and Ceila feels a crack open inside her chest, a crack that widens into something raw and bleeding as she tries to imagine what April must have felt—cornered, betrayed, handed over like a bargaining chip to a dangerous man who specialized in exploiting fear. The realization that April wasn’t her enemy but rather the last living link to the woman Ceila lost devastates her, and she sinks to the floor, clutching the envelope against her heart as if it could somehow rewind time, undo the damage, erase the moment she chose violence over compassion, but time offers no mercy. Meanwhile, Ray’s involvement haunts her like a ghost, because she knows now that by delivering April to him, she put the girl in a danger far darker than she ever anticipated, and the thought that April might still be suffering somewhere, frightened and alone, because of her actions tears through Ceila’s conscience like a blade, making her desperation spiral into panic as she scrambles to find her phone and dial Ray’s number even though she knows he won’t answer—he never answers once he gets what he wants—but she tries again and again, her voice breaking as she leaves frantic messages begging him to bring April back, promising money, silence, anything he wants, only to be met by the void. Hours pass, then a day, then two, and Ceila’s guilt mutates into a relentless obsession as she retraces every step she took the night she betrayed April, replaying every decision, every lie she told herself, every moment she chose fear over truth, until she can no longer bear the weight of her own actions and drags herself to the police station, trembling uncontrollably as she confesses everything, spilling the entire sordid story to the officers who stare at her with a mixture of shock and cold, professional detachment, and the more she speaks, the more the horror of her choices becomes undeniable—even to her. The investigation begins immediately, and as Ceila watches officers disappear into back rooms and begin making calls, she feels the crushing realization that her regret, no matter how deep, cannot shield her from the consequences of what she’s done, nor can it protect April from whatever Ray has planned, but she stays at the station for hours, unable to leave, unable to breathe, waiting for news, waiting for punishment, waiting for anything that might offer the faintest sliver of hope that April can still be found. When the truth about April’s biological mother finally emerges—how she was swallowed by poverty, danger, and impossible choices, how she vanished during a desperate attempt to escape the same criminal network Ray now runs, how she died alone and unidentified while Ceila spent years searching in all the wrong places—the grief becomes unbearable, a grief soaked in the bitter knowledge that April might have been the only person who could give Ceila any connection to the daughter she lost, and instead of protecting that fragile link, she destroyed it with her own hands. As search efforts intensify and the community learns what Ceila has done, whispers follow her everywhere—some cruel, some pitying, all true—and Ceila finds herself drowning in a combination of shame and determination, vowing that she will not stop until April is found, that she will claw through every shadow of Ray’s world if she has to, not because she believes she deserves forgiveness, but because April does. In the dead of night, lying awake in the silence that feels sharper than any punishment, Ceila clings to one fragile hope: that if April survives this ordeal, if she returns, if she chooses to speak to her again, then maybe Ceila can spend the rest of her life trying to repair the damage she caused, trying to honor the daughter she lost by protecting the girl who should never have been hurt in the first place, but until that moment comes—if it ever does—Ceila must live with the truth that her deepest regret was born not from malice but from a devastating misunderstanding, one that cost April her safety and cost Ceila the last chance she ever had to make peace with her past, leaving her shattered, remorseful, and forever changed.