Chapter 1

My son, Archie Burton, has a bad habit of being painfully honest.

I ask him, "Am I handsome?"

"To be honest, Dad," he says, "you're the ugliest dad in the whole kindergarten."

My mother-in-law tears into me for being a spendthrift after I buy Archie an expensive backpack, and I ask him how he feels about it.

"Honestly," he says, "it makes me happy to watch you get chewed out."

My wife asks him jokingly if he'll take care of me when I get old.

"No way am I looking after him," he says. "When he gets old, he should just die."

My heart sinks.

But Archie just smiles. "I'm only telling the truth!"

Then the police come by to conduct a census check and ask him a few simple questions.

He is brutally honest as usual.

Only this time, he regrets it for the rest of his life.

Chapter 1

It was census time, and the police were doing house calls.

My seven-year-old son, Archie Burton, blinked and asked, "Why are you writing all this down?"

The officer patted Archie's head. "It helps with national statistics, and it keeps kids safe from human traffickers."

Archie nodded, then shot up with a sudden look of revelation. "Oh, I get it! You're looking for kidnappers! That's my dad! He said so himself yesterday! He kidnapped me!"

The officer's smile froze.

I stared at Archie in utter disbelief. When I saw the mischievous glint in his eyes, my mind went completely blank.

Archie loved using the "truth" to hurt me.

Just yesterday, I'd cut him off from eating too many snacks, and he called me an evil dad, saying he didn't want to be my son anymore.

Hot-headed, I shot back, "You're not my son anyway. I kidnapped you!"

He argued right back that he didn't believe me. Yet here he was now, taking a joke he claimed not to believe and serving it up to the cops as the "truth".

The officer's gaze at me turned cold.

I forced a dry laugh. "He wasn't listening yesterday, so I said it out of frustration. I didn't think he'd take it seriously."

Only then did the officer's expression soften. He turned to Archie and said, "Kiddo, you shouldn't joke about stuff like that. Your dad could go to prison if people think he's a kidnapper."

Archie nodded, and my heart began to settle. I thought the ordeal was over.

The next second, Archie looked up and said earnestly, "But my dad can't have kids. If I wasn't kidnapped, where'd I come from?"

The officer turned back to me, eyes sharp with suspicion.

I scrambled to explain, "I got a vasectomy right after he was born. That's probably what he means by 'can't have kids'."

I gave Archie's hand a firm tug, signaling him to zip it.

He pulled away instead. "Dad couldn't have kids right after getting married, but I'm already seven."

I had no idea how a seven-year-old could piece that logic together.

Strictly speaking, it raised some serious red flags.

My wife, Elsie Cooke, and I had been married for six years, and I'd had my vasectomy six years ago. How could we have a seven-year-old?

The officer realized the math wasn't adding up. His expression hardened. "Let me see the boy's birth certificate."

My heart sank into my stomach.

There was no birth certificate.

Six years ago, I'd risked my life to rescue Archie from a ring of human traffickers.

When the police pulled up his birth parents' records back then, the truth left us speechless.

Elsie and I went pale. We both knew one thing. Returning him to those people would be a fate worse than death.

We couldn't bear to do it, so we raised him as our own.

Archie thought I was just throwing a fit yesterday, oblivious to the fact that my harsh words were actually the truth.

We'd kept it from him only to shield him from ever feeling like an outsider in his own home.

Now, if I didn't come clean, I was going away in handcuffs.

Just as I opened my mouth, Archie gasped. "Oh! I remember now! Dad got Mom pregnant before they got married! That's what grown-ups mean by a scumbag, right?"

I froze on the spot.

If Archie's crude guess were true, I'd be dying of embarrassment right about now. But my silence now was born of disappointment.

Believing he'd landed a blow, Archie grinned with quiet triumph. "Don't be mad, Dad. I was just telling the truth to help you out!"

The officer withdrew his complicated gaze from me and went back to taking notes.

Hidden from sight, my hands were clenched tight as I fought to swallow the emotions surging inside me.

This wasn't the first time Archie had pulled something like this.

Chapter 2

Back when Archie was in kindergarten, he used to brag to me all the time about how handsome other kids' dads were.

At the time, I asked him, "Am I not handsome?"

Archie stared right into my eyes and said, "You're not handsome at all! You're the ugliest dad in the whole kindergarten!"

I froze, stunned. Seeing him smiling with his eyes crinkled in delight, I couldn't help saying, "It hurts my feelings when you talk like that."

To my surprise, Archie replied seriously, "But my teacher said good kids always tell the truth!"

I was struck dumb. A faint sensation of unease crept over me.

Usually, a child saw the people who raised them through a natural filter of love, looks included.

But Archie was different.

Later, when he started elementary school, I spent 100 bucks buying him a superhero backpack he'd been begging for.

When my mother-in-law, Lauren Cole, found out how much it cost, she pointed a finger at my nose and scolded me for throwing money away.

Archie simply used her nagging as background music and clapped his hands in the living room.

I couldn't help asking him, "Don't you have any thoughts when you hear Grandma yell at me like that?"

Archie's eyes darted around before settling on me again. "I do! I feel super happy!"

When I saw the genuine joy written across his face, my expression hardened instantly.

Archie stared at me for a long time, then added, "Don't be mad, Dad. I'm just telling the truth."

Last month, Archie got sick, and I took care of him day and night for an entire month.

Seeing how much weight I'd lost, Elsie asked Archie, "Your dad takes such good care of you. Will you take care of him when he's old?"

Archie glanced at me and pouted. "No way! When he gets old, he should just die!"

Elsie went stiff, and the color drained completely from my face.

Yet seeing us look so crushed only made Archie dance around in pure delight.

I didn't utter another word on the way home, but Archie turned around and asked me, "Dad, are you upset because of my honesty again?"

That night, I barely slept a wink.

Elsie tossed and turned too. Then she suddenly broke the silence with a quiet, "Archie's just… joking when he says those things, right?"

Even her own voice quivered with uncertainty.

Every single time I was tormented by Archie's words, a flash of joy would pass through his eyes.

Then he'd pull the same trick all over again, using "just telling the truth" to shut me up.

Thinking back to it all, I could barely keep my emotions under control.

I quickly opened the front door, eager to see the officer out.

"Officer!" Archie called out just as the cop was stepping over the threshold.

Tilting his head, he asked, "If I find out my dad really is a kidnapper, can I call you?"

The officer looked back and forth between Archie and me with a complicated expression.

In the end, he slipped a contact card into Archie's hand before leaving.

Chapter 3

After the officer left, Archie tilted his head and sized me up. A flicker of disappointment crossed his eyes when he saw that my expression remained entirely calm.

I couldn't help asking, "Why did you say those things to the officer just now?"

Archie put his hands on his hips and threw his head back before replying matter-of-factly, "Because I'm a good boy who always tells the truth! If anyone's to blame, it's you, Dad! You're the one who got mad and said I was kidnapped!"

That was the moment I knew for sure. He'd told the cop on purpose, all to punish me for the things I said in the heat of the moment yesterday.

Clenching my fists, I asked him, "What if I really did snatch you from human traffickers but kept you because your birth parents were bad people? Would you really call the cops and send me to prison?"

Archie nodded without a second's hesitation. "Yes! Like I said, Dad, I'm a good boy who tells the truth!"

My heart plunged straight to the bottom of my stomach.

Elsie had come back at some point and had been standing near the doorway for a while. Her expression was terrifyingly dark.

Still, she swallowed her distress to comfort me. "Maybe… he'll grow out of it when he gets older."

Archie perked right back up, completely oblivious to our pain.

I couldn't help wondering. If Elsie and I spent half our lives working ourselves to the bone only to raise an ingrate, why shouldn't we cut our losses before it was too late?

Yet after raising Archie all these years, I still wanted to give him one last chance.

Looking at the business card on the table, I purposely said, "Archie, actually, I really did kidnap you. The safe at home has your original records, taken right from your birth parents.

"If you keep using your honesty to hurt us, your mom and I are going to send you right back to them."

Hearing that, real fear—the kind that actually belonged to a child his age—finally broke across Archie's face.

In an urgent voice, he turned to Elsie. "Mom, is that true?"

Elsie buried her disgust and replied, "Your dad's just joking."

The panic on Archie's face melted away bit by bit, and he pouted at me. "So it's not real? I wish I actually had real parents! I hate you, Dad!"

Elsie's expression darkened even further.

Archie, however, kept his eyes glued to me.

I played along, letting a wounded look fall over my face, and only then did he break into a wide grin.

At that moment, everything became painfully clear.

Archie had always believed he was our biological son, which was why he felt so fearless in hurting me time after time.

I felt utterly disappointed.

That night, just as I was drifting off to sleep, I heard the subtle twist of my bedroom door handle.

A tiny figure slipped into the room.

A minute later, the silhouette crept back out.

From outside the bedroom door came a child's voice, carefully hushed. "Hello? Officer Randall? Actually, my dad really is a kidnapper! The proof is inside his safe. You need to come and arrest him!"

Chapter 4

The police arrived incredibly fast. I'd barely thrown on a jacket when they practically kicked down the front door.

Archie burst into tears and ducked behind one of the officers for protection. Pointing a trembling finger at me in panic, he yelled, "My dad's a kidnapper! He said he kidnapped me!"

The officers didn't catch it, but I saw the cunning sparkle in Archie's eyes earlier.

It was that same gloating satisfaction he always got whenever he used the "truth" to mess with me.

An officer pressed his baton against my shoulder. His voice was heavy with authority as he said, "Open up the safe. We need to inspect the contents."

Woken by the commotion, Elsie hurried out of the bedroom. The moment she heard the word "safe", panic seized her. "You can't open that!"

Seeing her reaction, the lead officer signaled his partner to start picking the lock.

Looking at the array of tools scattered across the floor, I turned my gaze toward Archie. "Archie, your mom told you earlier today that it was a joke. Why did you still call the police? Is that how 'telling the truth' works?"

Archie clamped his mouth shut, not saying a single word about what Elsie had told him.

I looked at Archie with a meaningful gaze. "You're going to regret opening that safe."

Archie pouted and let out a heavy huff. "You can never tell jokes from the truth, so I have to punish you. That way, you will learn to only tell the truth, just like me."

The police popped the first lock on the safe.

As the safe door swung open, a small, sealed container was revealed inside.

I asked Archie, "If this actually proves you're not my son, will you go back to your birth parents?"

Archie answered without missing a beat, "Yes! Every time I tell the truth, you get mad. I hate you!"

Whatever lingering fondness or hesitation I had left for him vanished entirely.

The sealed container was a high-density box I'd purchased years ago, which was nearly impossible to pry open by force.

Seeing the officer sweating bullets as he struggled with it, I finally spoke up. "I can open it with the passcode. But only if Archie signs a dissolution of adoption agreement with me."

Archie didn't understand what an adoption dissolution was, but seeing how desperate I seemed to keep the box locked, he nodded enthusiastically.

He pressed his palm print right onto the paper.

I punched in Archie's birthday, and the small box clicked open.

Inside lay three documents.

The first was an official adoption agreement.

The second was a news clipping detailing how I had risked my life to rescue him from human traffickers years ago.

The third was his biological parents' records.

The officer glanced at the first document and stayed silent.

When he reached the second, shock washed over his face. He flipped back and forth through the pages several times, and when he finally looked up, his eyes were filled with profound respect.

"You saved this kid from human traffickers at the risk of your own life? That's incredible."

Archie froze, utterly stunned when he didn't hear the officer yell at me but instead saw him give me a thumbs-up.

The officer's awe was brief. Out of professional habit, he quickly opened the third file.

With just one look, he froze on the spot.

He snapped his head up to look at me with disbelief written across his face. "A-are you sure they're his biological parents? Are you honestly sending him back to them?"

The other officers who hadn't seen the file were completely out of the loop. They crowded around to read the document together.

The very next second, every single one of them cast a look of deep pity toward Archie.

Everyone in the room waited for my answer.

I simply closed my eyes and nodded. "The adoption dissolution agreement has been signed. There's no turning back."

Looking around at everyone's expressions, Archie suddenly seemed to understand what was happening. Absolute terror spread across his face.