Chapter 6 - The Twist
I stared at the screen, my thumb hovering over the notification link. My heart drummed a frantic beat against my ribs. Brenda had mailed the kit three days ago, and despite our best efforts, the automated lab system had processed it before our legal team could slap them with a federal freeze.
Should I open it?
Part of me wanted to throw the phone against the wall and pretend the test never existed. I knew the truth. I knew Leo was Marcus’s child—there had never been anyone else. But the nagging, toxic seed of doubt that Brenda had planted over the last nine months whispered in the back of my mind. What if something went wrong? What if biology played a cruel, impossible trick?
"Elena?" Clara's voice called softly from the nursery doorway. She stepped inside, her sharp eyes noticing the pale look on my face and the glowing screen in my hand. "What is it?"
"The lab," I whispered, holding the phone out like it was radioactive. "They processed it. The results are ready."
Clara walked over, her expression tightening. Without hesitation, she reached out, took the phone from my trembling fingers, and tapped the link.
The room seemed to tilt on its axis. Clara’s eyes scanned the digital document displayed on the screen. For three agonizing seconds, the formidable, unflappable attorney stood completely frozen, the color draining from her face.
"Clara?" I breathed, a cold knot tightening in my stomach. "What does it say?"
Clara looked up slowly, her gaze meeting mine with an expression of profound, sickening shock.
"Elena," Clara whispered, her voice barely audible over the hum of the baby monitor. "You need to read this yourself."
I snatched the phone back. My eyes tracked down the clinical, sterile lines of the digital report, skipping past the jargon until they hit the bottom summary box:
Paternity Probability: 0.0% Biological Father Match to Marcus Vance: Incompatible.
The words blurred together, spinning in a dizzying vortex of absolute disbelief.
Zero percent.
It wasn't possible. It was a mistake. A lab mix-up, a contaminated sample, a malicious fabrication by the testing facility—it had to be. I had never been with anyone else. From the moment I met Marcus, my world had revolved around him. I had never looked at another man, let alone slept with one.
"This is wrong," I gasped, clutching my head as a wave of nausea washed over me. "This is completely wrong! Brenda must have tampered with the swab! She switched the sample!"
"Think logically, Elena," Clara said gently, placing a steadying hand on my arm. "If Brenda switched the sample, she would have had to provide her own DNA or someone else's to frame you. But why would she risk destroying her son's claim to his own child unless..."
Clara stopped, her legal mind working at lightspeed.
"Unless she already suspected something," I whispered, the horrifying realization dawning on me like a sunrise over a wasteland.
May you like
Before Clara could answer, heavy footsteps thudded down the hallway. The nursery door swung wide open, and Marcus stood in the frame, breathing heavily, his face twisted in an ugly, manic mask of triumph.
"I heard you talking," Marcus sneered, his voice dripping with venom as he looked at my pale, terrified face. "Brenda just checked her email. The lab sent a copy to her account, too. The test is in."
