Chapter 6 - THE BLOOD-TYPING TWIST
Three weeks later.
The Duca estate had been restored. The shattered windows were replaced with reinforced, ballistic-grade glass, and the security grid was completely overhauled. But inside the mansion, a different kind of peace had begun to settle.
The triplets were playing in the grand courtyard. Ava was chasing a golden retriever puppy Rocco had bought her, her laughter echoing against the limestone walls. Luca was happily painting a massive canvas with finger paints, completely covered in bright blues and greens.
And Marco was sitting on the stone bench next to Rocco, watching a game of chess laid out between them.
"Your knight is exposed," Rocco said quietly, gesturing to the board.
Marco looked at the piece, then up at Rocco with those pale blue, uncanny eyes. "It's a trap. If you take my knight, my bishop takes your queen."
Rocco stared at the five-year-old, a genuine, rare warmth spreading through his chest. "Good boy," he whispered, reaching out to ruffle the boy's dark hair. For the first time, Marco didn't pull away.
Serena watched them from the kitchen window, a cup of tea cooling in her hands. She felt a strange, terrifying sensation in her chest: safety. For five years, she had been running, looking over her shoulder, waiting for the other shoe to drop. But here, surrounded by Rocco’s army, her children were safe. And looking at Rocco with them, she realized he wasn't the monster his father was. He was a monster, yes—but he was their monster.
The door to the kitchen opened, and Dante stepped inside. His face was entirely pale, his hands trembling as he held a sealed medical document.
"Serena," Dante whispered, his voice completely devoid of its usual authority. "You need to see this. The medical team just finished the mandatory DNA and blood-typing profiles for the children’s security registry."
Serena frowned, setting her tea down. "Why do you look like you've seen a ghost, Dante? We already know they're Rocco's. Look at Marco's eyes. Look at their ages."
"No," Dante said, his voice cracking as he handed her the paper. "Look at the genetic markers, Serena. Look at the maternal match."
Serena pulled the document from his hand, her eyes scanning down the clinical white page. Her breath caught in her throat. Her heart stopped beating entirely.
The DNA report confirmed that Marco, Ava, and Luca were a 99.9% match to Rocco Duca.
But as her eyes scrolled down to the maternal DNA match—the section that should have listed her own genetic profile—the result read: 0.0% MATERNAL MATCH.
Serena’s world violently spun on its axis. She staggered backward, hitting the kitchen counter, the paper fluttering to the floor.
"What... what is this?" she whispered, her hands flying to her stomach. "I carried them for nine months! I gave birth to them in a clinic in Vermont! I felt them kick! I bled for them!"
Rocco stepped into the kitchen, having noticed the commotion through the glass. He picked up the fallen paper from the floor, his eyes scanning the data. His face went entirely rigid, the pale blue of his eyes turning into a terrifying, unreadable void.
"Serena," Rocco said, his voice dropping to a level of coldness that exceeded anything she had ever heard before. "Five years ago, when you were admitted to the Duca private clinic for your routine fertility checkups... my father told you that you were having trouble conceiving. He gave you those 'hormone injections' every week."
Serena nodded frantically, tears streaming down her face. "Yes! He said it was to help me get pregnant!"
Rocco looked out the window at the three children playing in the sun. The puzzle pieces finally clicked together in a way that was so monstrous, so deeply twisted, it defied human comprehension.
"My father didn't want your bloodline mixing with ours, Serena," Rocco whispered, the horrific truth laying bare between them. "You were just the surrogate. Five years ago, he secretly harvested my genetic material, combined it with the eggs of an elite, hand-selected lineage from the European nobility, and implanted them into you without your knowledge. You gave birth to my children... but biologically, they aren't yours."
Serena let out a broken, animalistic scream of pure agony, falling to her knees on the marble floor. Her entire life, her entire sacrifice, her five years of running in the dark—it had all been orchestrated by a dead patriarch from beyond the grave.
Rocco knelt down beside her. He didn't pull away. He gathered her shaking body into his arms, holding her tightly against his chest as she sobbed into his shoulder.
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"They are your children, Serena," Rocco vowed fiercely into her hair, his eyes locked on the triplets outside. "The paper doesn't matter. The blood doesn't matter. You raised them. You saved them. And whoever the biological mother is... if she ever comes looking for them, I will bury her beside my brother."
Outside, in the bright afternoon sun, Marco stopped playing. He turned toward the house, his pale blue eyes staring through the glass, watching his parents hold each other in the dark—a family built on blood, lies, and an empire that would never let them go.
