Chapter 3 - The Gathering of the Wolves
The Grand Horizon was the kind of restaurant where people went to see and be seen. It sat on the thirty-second floor, overlooking the city, with floor-to-ceiling glass windows and white marble tables.
When I walked through the double glass doors at 1:00 PM, the hostess stopped me, her eyes widening in recognition. She had clearly seen the social media posts from the night before.
"Sir, I'm sorry, but this is a private event—"
"I'm on the list," I said, gently pushing past her.
In the private dining alcove, twenty of Lydia’s closest friends—the elite of the city's charity circuits—were seated around a long table adorned with white orchids.
At the head of the table sat Lydia, looking regal and tragic. To her right was Vanessa, looking triumphant in an emerald-green dress. To her left was Claire, looking pale, her eyes red-rimmed, wearing the blue dress I had asked her to wear.
As I entered the alcove, the ambient chatter died instantly. It was like a wave of cold water washing over the room.
Lydia stood up, her pearls clinking against her champagne glass. "Daniel. You have a lot of nerve showing your face here."
Vanessa smirked, leaning back in her chair. "I told you he’d show up. He’s desperate. Security! Please escort this man out."
Two large security guards in suits stepped forward, but I raised my hand, holding up a small, sleek black USB drive.
"Before you throw me out, Vanessa," I said, my voice echoing off the marble walls, "perhaps you’d like to explain why your personal iPad logged into the prenatal clinic’s database at 9:14 PM last Tuesday using a stolen administrator credential?"
Vanessa’s smile faltered, just for a millisecond, before her mask of confidence hardened. "I don't know what kind of delusional lies you're trying to spin to save yourself, Daniel, but the science doesn't lie. Claire’s baby isn't yours."
"You're right," I said, walking slowly toward the table. "Science doesn't lie. But people do."
I plugged the USB drive into the large presentation screen at the end of the alcove—the one Lydia usually used to show slideshows of her charity galas.
"What are you doing?" Lydia hissed. "Stop him!"
"Let him," Vanessa said, her voice dropping an octave, filled with venom. "Let him embarrass himself further. It’ll just make the divorce proceedings easier."
The screen flickered to life.
Instead of a paternity report, it displayed a video file. I pressed play.
It was the security footage from my study from the night before. The room watched in stunned silence as Vanessa’s face appeared on the giant screen, illuminated by the infrared light, frantically throwing my papers onto the floor.
“Where is it?” Vanessa’s recorded voice echoed through the high-end restaurant. “He has a physical backup of everything... We need to make sure he doesn't have the real medical records to show the lawyers.”
Then Lydia’s voice: “Vanessa, if Daniel finds out we—”
“Shut up, Mother! Daniel is a nobody... Once Claire signs the power of attorney over to you because of her 'emotional distress,' we control her share of the trust.”
The silence in the restaurant was absolute. A champagne glass slipped from one of Lydia’s friend’s hands, shattering on the marble floor.
Lydia’s face turned an ash-gray color. She looked around the room at her friends, her mouth opening and closing like a fish out of water.
"That... that is a doctored video!" Lydia cried out. "He made that with AI! He’s a tech person, he can fake anything!"
"Is this fake too, Vanessa?" I asked, clicking to the next slide.
The screen split. On the left was the document Vanessa had held up at the baby shower. On the right was the raw server metadata from the clinic.
"This is the digital fingerprint of the iPad used to create that forgery," I said, pointing to the screen. "It shows the MAC address, the IP address registered to Vanessa’s apartment, and the exact software program used to copy Dr. Aris's signature. And here..."
I clicked one more time.
"...is the actual, unaltered DNA report from the clinic’s secure database. Certified, sealed, and verified by three independent geneticists."
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I looked at Claire. Her eyes were wide, filled with a mixture of shock and profound relief.
"Our baby is mine, Claire," I said softly. "It was always mine."
