Elias Thorne detested Tuesday afternoons. Not because of the workload, but because it was the time when the sunlight invaded his office at a cruel angle, illuminating the dust particles suspended in the air—dust that mercilessly reminded him that time continued to pass, even though he wished it had stopped twenty years ago.

The visit to the new residential complex “O Horizonte” should have been just another insignificant item on his busy schedule. Elias was a billionaire, a real estate tycoon whose mere frown could shake the stock market. However, inside that bespoke suit worth thousands of dollars, inside the armored car that glided as smoothly as velvet, there was a hollow man. He lived, but he didn’t exist. His wealth was like a golden paint covering a ruined house.

“We’re almost there, sir,” the driver’s voice sounded cautious, cutting off Elias’s train of thought.

Elias nodded slightly, his eyes fixed on the darkened window. Outside, the city writhed, noisy and chaotic. Today’s mission was simple: show up, shake hands with a few contractors who were sweating with fear, nod to some architectural blueprints he already knew by heart, and leave before the construction dust dared to stain his impeccable Italian leather shoes.

That was the procedure. That was their protective shell.

But fate, with its sadistic sense of humor, didn’t care about Elias’s schedule.

As the luxury car began to slow down in front of the construction site gate, a tangle of iron and steel, an invisible feeling of unease crept into Elias’s chest. It wasn’t the usual discomfort. It was a cold electric current running down his spine, similar to the instinct of an animal sensing an approaching storm.

The construction site gate swung open like the mouth of a giant beast, swallowing the silence of the luxury car into the deafening roar of jackhammers and hammers pounding metal. A grey mist hung over the site—a suffocating mixture of cement dust, machine smoke, and the scorching heat emanating from the asphalt.

Elias intended to close his eyes and wait for the car to come to a complete stop, but his gaze accidentally swept over the concrete mixing area in the distance. And then, the world stopped spinning.

Time, that entity he hated so much, suddenly froze.

In the midst of the crowd of robust and rough men shouting orders to move steel beams, there was a figure completely out of place. Small. Frail. Lonely.

She was a girl, or rather, a child in Elias’s eyes at that moment. She wore a loose safety vest that seemed to swallow her thin body, and a rigid helmet that fell over her forehead, hiding half her face. She was spreading wet cement. Each movement of the shovel, each twist of her body exuded a stubborn determination, but also a profound exhaustion.

But what made Elias hold his breath wasn’t the presence of a woman at the construction site. It was the way she was standing.

Though covered in layers of dirt and sweat, her posture—the way she tilted her left shoulder slightly as she strained, the way she braced the shovel handle on the ground for momentum—was painfully familiar. It was like a sharp knife driven directly into his sealed memories. That image sucked all the air from his lungs, leaving a burning void.

“Sir?” the driver whispered, noticing the anomaly in the rearview mirror. “Are you alright, sir?”

Elias did not answer. He couldn’t answer. All his senses were now focused on a single point.

The car door was violently opened.

“Mr. Thorne! Wait, it’s very dirty and dangerous out there!” The assistant’s voice sounded alarmed, but Elias had already left.

The expensive leather shoes sank instantly into the mud mixed with cement. The stifling heat of the summer midday slapped his face, bringing with it the acrid smell of chemicals and sweat. But he didn’t care. He walked like a sleepwalker, his eyes glued to that silhouette.

The girl still hadn’t noticed his presence. She paused for a moment, raising her skeletal arm to wipe her forehead. Her helmet was pushed back slightly.

And when she turned her head, Elias’s world completely crumbled.

His heart, which had been beating erratically for the past twenty years, suddenly contracted violently, as if it wanted to explode inside his ribcage.

Those eyes.

It was impossible to mistake them. It was a rare shade of emerald green, clear as an autumn lake, yet deep as eternal sorrow. They were the eyes that haunted him in every dream. The eyes of his deceased wife, whom he had loved more than life itself. And, most painfully, they were the eyes of Sofia—the little daughter who had disappeared one fateful afternoon in a crowded park, twenty years ago.

Memories flooded his mind like an avalanche. Her crystalline laughter as she held a cotton candy. Her tiny hand slipping from his in the chaotic crowd. The police sirens. The months of desperate searching. And finally, the deadly silence when the detective said, “I’m sorry, Mr. Thorne. Perhaps we should stop.”

They told him to stop. They said she was dead, or that she had been taken somewhere he would never find her. He had built a financial empire just to fill that void, but it had been in vain.

And now, in the middle of this filthy construction site, those eyes were staring at him.

Hey! You there!

Elijah’s cry came out broken, hoarse. It didn’t sound like a leader’s order, but like the cry for help of someone drowning.

The girl shuddered violently. The shovel fell from her hands, producing a dry, metallic sound as it struck the stones. She recoiled quickly, her shoulders hunched in a fearful defensive reflex. She lowered her face, as if she were used to being reprimanded.

“I’m sorry, sir,” she said, her voice hurried, trembling, and pleading. “I wasn’t resting, I swear. Please don’t fire me. I need this job… My grandmother is very ill.”

Each of her words was like a nail being hammered into Elias’s heart. “Don’t fire me. My grandmother is sick.” Those sentences exposed a life of misery, a struggle for survival that his little daughter—if she were alive—should never have had to endure. His Sofia was a princess, born with a silver spoon in her mouth. And this girl…

Elias quickened his pace, closing the distance between them. He ignored the curious glances of the workers around them, ignored the roar of the machines.

As he stopped in front of her, he smelled cement, rust, and acidic sweat clinging to her clothes. But beneath it all, he felt a blood connection screaming out.

He extended his trembling hand, holding her hands.

These were not the hands of a delicate lady. They were rough, calloused hands, full of small, bleeding cuts and overlapping old scars. The palms were hardened by manual labor.

Elias felt a lump in his throat, a bitter taste blocking his trachea. What did you have to endure? For twenty years, while I slept in silk sheets, where were you?

“I’m not here to fire you,” Elias whispered, his voice so low it was almost carried away by the wind. His usual authority had vanished, leaving only the trembling voice of an aging father. “Please… look at me. What’s your name?”

The girl hesitated. Her body was still tense with fear, but the strange gentleness in the unknown man’s voice piqued her curiosity. She slowly raised her head.

The sunlight shone directly on his dust-stained face, highlighting those emerald-green eyes. The fear in his gaze gave way to confusion.

“Lucía, sir,” she replied softly, her voice clear but heavy with sadness. “I am just a worker.”

— Lucía… — Elias repeated the name, tasting it on the tip of his tongue. The name was strange, but the person wasn’t.

“No,” he exhaled, shaking his head in denial. “It’s not Lucía.”

Reason told him it was madness. That he was hallucinating because of past pain. That there were millions of people with green eyes in the world. But a father’s intuition—the intuition that had kept him sane for twenty years—screamed that this was the truth.

There was a sign. A unique piece of evidence that no one could fake. A secret known only to him and his late wife.

Elias’s hand, which had signed billion-dollar contracts without hesitation, now trembled uncontrollably as it approached the girl’s neck.

“If you are who I think you are,” said Elias, his voice choked with tears, “you will have three small birthmarks here.”

The surrounding space seemed to have been sucked into a black hole of silence. The workers had stopped working, watching in stunned silence the bizarre scene: a tycoon in his ruined suit, standing in the mud, tremblingly touching a poor female worker.

Lucía stood motionless like a statue. She didn’t understand what was happening, but the man’s look of utter pain prevented her from moving. There was a deep sadness in him that resonated with the loneliness in her own soul.

Elias, gentle and cautious as if he were touching the most fragile porcelain in the world, brushed away the sweaty strands of hair that covered the back of the girl’s ear and neck.

The skin there was lighter than her sunburnt face. And there, just below the lobe of her right ear, hidden beneath her tangled hair…

He held his breath.

One two three.

Three small reddish dots, arranged in a perfect triangle.

The world tilted. The noise of construction faded. Before Elijah’s eyes there was no more dust, but the image of a newborn baby in a cradle, and his wife smiling as she said, “Look, Elijah, she has been marked. No matter where she goes, God will recognize her.”

Tears welled up in Elijah’s eyes, hot and salty. He fell to his knees. Not from exhaustion, but because the weight of that truth was too great to bear standing.

— Sofia… — He sobbed, tears breaking out like those of a child. — My God… Sofia, my daughter.

Lucía—or Sofia—looked at the powerful man kneeling at her feet, crying uncontrollably and calling out an unknown name, but one that sounded strangely familiar. A sharp pain shot through her head. Blurred, fragmented images flashed through her mind: A pink dress… a large, warm hand… the scent of men’s cologne… and the word “Daddy” echoing from a place very, very far away.

She took a step back, placing her hand on the exact spot of the three marks. Her grandmother—the woman who had found and taken her in twenty years ago—had always said that it was the kiss of an angel. She had never told her where she had found it.

“Sir… who are you?” Lucía asked, her voice faltering, fear mixed with a fragile hope that had just been born.

Elias raised his head, his red eyes fixed on his lost daughter. He didn’t care about his dirty suit, he didn’t care about honor or status. At that moment, he was just a father who had just found the heart he had lost.

He stood up slowly, opening his arms toward her in a gesture that contained all the forgiveness and protection she had longed for throughout her stormy life.

“I am the one who has waited for you… for twenty years,” he said, his voice choked with emotion. “Let’s go home, daughter. Your war is over.”

The wind blew fiercely through the building, raising a curtain of dust, but in the center of that storm, two people stood face to face, beginning to mend a destiny that had been broken long ago.

And Elias knew: tomorrow, when the sun rose, he would no longer be a lonely billionaire in a cold castle. He would be a father.