A Texas father’s emotions were raw during court testimony this week for a criminal trial against his ex-wife’s parents.

As ABC News reported, Christopher Brann was the first witness called to testify when the kidnapping trial against relatives of Marcelle Guimaraes began on Tuesday.

The woman, who maintained citizenship in America and Brazil, is accused of taking the son she had with Brann to Brazil, where she established a permanent residence.

Brann cried on the witness stand as he recounted the call he said he received from his attorney in August 2013.

“Chris, they are going to run with the child,” his attorney allegedly told him, adding that his young son is “not coming back.”

Nicolas Brann was born in September 2009 and about three years later his parents were advancing through divorce proceedings.

Christopher Brann said he agreed to a request by Guimaraes to take their son to Brazil for a family wedding for a few weeks in July 2013. Days after they were supposed to return to the U.S., he allegedly received a message that his ex-wife was “too sick to travel and undergoing tests.”

A message from her father days later, however, assured the concerned father that his son would be returning home to Houston in less than a week.

He told authorities that yet another urgent message from his lawyer on the day Nicolas Brann was supposed to arrive once again shattered his hopes.

The lawyer allegedly relayed the message “that Carlos Guimaraes had communicated to him that Marcelle and Nicolas would establish permanent residence in Brazil.”

Though his ex-wife is still in Brazil with the boy, her parents were arrested in Miami earlier this year and all three have been indicted on charges of parental kidnapping. Carlos and Jemima Guimaraes have pleaded not guilty to the criminal count.

[Featured image: Christopher and Nicolas Brann/KTRK, video screenshot]