"Do you need me to go up with you?"
Lex Luthor opened his eyes and turned to the trembling boy, his tone calm.
Billy clamped the file shut, wiped his reddened eyes with his sleeve, and stubbornly shook his head.
"No... I'll go myself!"
With that, he took a deep breath, pushed open the car door, and walked toward the building with the weathered address plaque.
Ten minutes later.
The apartment building's iron door, previously shut tight, opened again. Billy dragged his feet out of the dim stairwell, utterly dejected.
Lex Luthor had not lied to him.
The truth was far crueler than he had imagined.
His getting lost at the amusement park all those years ago had been no accident. That woman, crushed by life and left with no other recourse, had deliberately let go of his hand.
Just now, behind the crack in the door, when he recounted the details of that day at the amusement park, what showed in the woman's eyes was not the wild joy of a mother reunited with her son, but the panic, embarrassment, and avoidance of someone whose old wounds had been exposed.
She had long since built a new life, and to her, Billy's sudden appearance was nothing more than a heavy burden and a past she refused to face.
Billy had not told her he had a fortune large enough to let her live in comfort for the rest of her life.
Because the moment he saw the look in his mother's eyes, the ten-year-old boy understood completely.
There were things money could not buy, and the mother who used to tell him stories by his bedside had died the day he was abandoned.
Like a puppet without a soul, Billy climbed back into the rear seat of the Maybach