Chapter 5 - THE TRUTH IN THE BLOOD
The email from the genetics lab arrived on a rainy Tuesday morning. The subject line was simply: Confidential Results - Case #8492.
I sat at my kitchen island, a cooling cup of coffee in front of me, staring at the screen of my laptop. The kids were at kindergarten, blissfully unaware of the storm that was about to break over our lives. My finger hovered over the mouse pad. Even though I knew the answer, seeing it in black and white felt terrifying. It made it real. It meant that from this day forward, Sebastian had a legal and moral claim to my children.
I clicked open the PDF.
I scrolled past the medical jargon, straight to the bottom line.
Probability of Paternity: 99.999%
I let out a breath I didn't know I was holding. A tear slipped down my cheek, dropping onto the wooden counter. Before I could process the emotion, my phone buzzed. It was Sebastian.
"You saw it," his voice came through the speaker, thick with an emotion I hadn't heard from him in half a decade. He sounded entirely broken.
"I saw it," I replied softly.
"They're mine. I have... I have a family." A ragged, shaking breath echoed through the line. "Hannah, I missed their first steps. I missed their first words. I missed five years of their lives."
"Yes. You did." I wouldn't soften the blow for him. He needed to feel the weight of what had been stolen from us.
"I'm coming over," he said firmly.
"No, Sebastian. The kids are at school. And we need to figure out how to handle this before you just insert yourself into their routine."
"I don't care about routines!" he suddenly shouted, the grief turning into desperation. "I am their father! I have the right to see them!"
"Rights? You want to talk about rights?" My anger flared again. "Where were your rights when I was begging you to come to the hospital? Where were your rights when I was paying for their cribs with credit cards I maxed out because your mother froze our joint accounts? You don't get to march in here and demand anything!"
Silence stretched over the line, heavy and suffocating. When he finally spoke, his tone had shifted from demanding to pleading. "I'm sorry. God, Hannah, I'm so sorry. I didn't know. I swear on my life, I didn't know. Please... tell me what to do. I will do whatever you want. Just don't shut me out."
I closed my eyes, rubbing my temples. Despite the anger, despite the pain, I could hear the genuine agony in his voice. "Tomorrow," I said quietly. "Tomorrow after school. You can come to the apartment. We will sit down with them together, and we will tell them the truth. But you follow my lead, Sebastian. If you overwhelm them, I will ask you to leave."
"I will," he promised quickly. "Whatever you say. Thank you."
After I hung up, I felt a strange sense of finality. The war wasn't over, but the battlefield had shifted. Sebastian was no longer the enemy. The real enemies were the people pulling his strings.
That afternoon, I received a hand-delivered, wax-sealed envelope at the bakery. I recognized the heavy, cream-colored stationary immediately. Eleanor Carter.
The letter inside was brief, elegant, and dripping with poison.
*Dear Hannah,
It has come to my attention that you are attempting a rather crude extortion scheme using forged medical documents. We are aware of the paternity test. Blood can be manipulated, just as the truth can be. I strongly advise you to reconsider your current trajectory. The Carter family does not lose. We destroy those who try to make us lose.
Do not underestimate a mother protecting her son.
Eleanor*
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I read the letter twice, a cold smile spreading across my face. She thought she was protecting him. She thought I was afraid of her money and her lawyers.
I took out my phone, snapped a picture of the letter, and saved it in the same secure folder as the hospital recording. Eleanor wanted to play dirty. But she had no idea she was playing against someone who had nothing left to lose.
