Hey Reader,

It wasn’t the state. It wasn’t the school. It wasn’t even a legal document that told Allison who she really was.

It was Patrick.

Allison had been forced to come back to the U.S. from Hamburg. She was emotionally tired, disoriented, and trying to adjust to the version of Manhattan that her mother called home. And then her cousin, perfect, polished, everything the family rewarded, looked her in the eye and said:

And he meant it.

He wasn’t talking about her clothes or the fact that she’d grown up oceans away. He was talking about something deeper, something decided long before she was born.

Her mother had been disowned for getting pregnant before marriage. Cut from the family trust. Written out of the legacy. The family’s protection, generational wealth, and powerful connections were gone.

Allison wasn’t just a disappointment. She was a disruption. She’d been born on the outside. And no matter how hard she worked, she was never getting back in.

That kind of cut doesn’t bleed right away. But it leaves a mark.

She didn’t know the legal truth yet. She had no idea there was a court-appointed guardian or that the state of Wisconsin had intervened before she was even born. She just knew something had shifted. The story she'd been told about choices, independence, and building your future was missing a chapter.

Weeks later, she finally asks Jeeves to search for the truth, and it all clicked into place.

Back in February, I laid out the real-world forces that made this series feel less like fiction and more like a warning. I talked about the legal precedent, the shifting cultural narratives, and the quiet policies that made their way into the story. I also shared why Sam’s story came first, why Rylee calls the baby a gift, and why so many characters miss the signs until it’s too late.

If you haven’t read that Q&A or you’re wondering how much of this world is real, you can find it here:

🧠 Inside the Unborn Child Protection Act (Substack)​

Some of it may sound familiar. Some of it might surprise you. All of it helped shape the story.

Thanks for reading and for thinking beyond the page.

​
—M.E. Wright

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