Chapter 52. My Doubts

GABRIEL

It had been a week since the day Maddie was lost and found and my life came back to the way it was. Even now, I didn’t understand this strange bond that had grown between us.

I didn’t quite know how to describe this feeling. It was like a bond, a connection that I never knew existed until now. When I found Maddie wandering near the old church, scared and alone, my first instinct was to comfort her, to make her feel safe. And as I held her tiny hand in mine, I felt this overwhelming sense of protectiveness, as if she were my own daughter?

This thought scared me, but I always felt there was something more to it. Ever since I answered the phone when Kira was in the hospital in Glasgow. Her voice stirred something in me.

I knew it might sound strange, given that I’ve only known Maddie for a short while, but there was something about her that just tugged at my heartstrings. Maybe it was the way she looked at me with those big, innocent eyes, or the sound o