The suitcase slipped from his hand and hit the hardwood floor with a dull thud, echoing through the quiet house. His tie — still twisted from an exhausting eighteen-hour flight from Toronto — hung loose across his chest, as if he’d run all the way from the airport.

He wasn’t supposed to be here.
Not today.
Not this hour.

Three more days of meetings, dinners, and contract negotiations were waiting for him across the ocean. But something — a strange, unwanted pressure in his chest — had pushed him onto the earliest flight home.

Now, standing in the entryway, he understood why.

The moment he opened the door, he was struck by a sight so unexpected it forced all the air out of his lungs. For a heartbeat he genuinely thought he’d entered the wrong house — someone else’s life.

Warm light filled the living room. Toys were scattered across the pale-blue rug. And in the center of it all…

The new nanny, Elise, knelt on the floor, her black-and-white uniform sharply contrasting with the colorful chaos around her.

But she wasn’t the reason his chest tightened.

It was his children.
His three boys.
His trinity.

Leo. Max. Jules.

Kneeling beside her, tiny hands clasped together, eyes closed as if in prayer — or something even more desperate. The scene felt too gentle, too intimate, too raw for him to process.

— Dad?

Leo’s voice cracked the silence. His eyes opened slowly, and what Adrien saw in them was not surprise… but resignation. The kind children learn too early.

— We didn’t think you’d come back so soon.

Adrien swallowed hard.
He’d expected chaos, screams, toys thrown around — the usual.
Not this.
Not a quiet ritual of children who had run out of ways to ask for their father.

Elise stood up quickly, flustered but determined not to break the boys’ fragile confidence.

— They told me they wanted to “call you home,” she said, voice trembling. They said wishing wasn’t enough anymore. They needed to make it stronger.

His heart twisted.

Max tugged at his sleeve.
— We held hands so the wish wouldn’t fall apart.

Jules whispered:
— And then you came.

Something inside Adrien buckled.
His knees nearly gave out, and before he could catch his breath, all three boys threw themselves into his arms.

Their fingers gripped him with a desperation he hadn’t felt before — as if they were afraid he might vanish again.

Elise’s voice cut through the moment, soft but painfully honest:

— They weren’t trying to bring back the businessman. They were trying to bring back their dad.

Those words hit harder than any accusation.
Harder than any fight.
Harder than any truth he’d avoided.

Adrien wrapped his arms around his sons, feeling their tiny hearts beating against him, each thump a reminder of how far he’d drifted.

— I’m here, he whispered. I hear you. I’m not running again.

And in that moment, he realized something terrifying:
The most shocking thing in this room wasn’t what he discovered.

It was what his children had lost while he was gone — and what they were willing to summon the universe itself to get back.