Leo Evans never knew his father. Darin died before Leo was born—officially from a heart attack, though his mother Wendy knows it was murder.

What Leo does know is impossible: his father's consciousness survived death, preserved in a severed finger kept locked away. Through that finger, through the Gift that passes from father to son, Leo can speak to the dead man who loves him. A father who guides him, teaches him, shapes him from beyond the grave.

At five years old, Leo is extraordinary. Brilliant. Sensitive. And carrying a supernatural ability that must remain secret from a world that wouldn't understand—and a Church that's already killed to protect its own mysteries.

Raised by Wendy, a nurse balancing night shifts with single motherhood, and supported by Jackie, the grandmother-figure who holds their fractured family together, Leo navigates childhood in the shadow of an impossible inheritance. Every communion with Darin brings comfort and connection. But it also brings questions Leo is too young to answer.

Why did the Vatican murder his father?

What did Darin discover in Rome that was worth killing for?

And as Leo grows older, as the Gift strengthens within him, another question emerges:

Will the same people who killed his father come for him too?

*The Second Gift* chronicles the early years of a child born into extraordinary circumstances, exploring the fierce love of a mother protecting her son from forces she barely understands, and a father's devotion that not even death can end.

The Gift has been passed. The danger is just beginning.