Chapter 3 - PATERNITY
The DNA test took days.
Real days.
Not movie hours.
I refused every offer from men in my organization to “handle” it privately.
Accredited lab.
Attorney-supervised.
Documented chain of custody.
Emily noticed.
Said nothing.
The result:
99.99 percent probability.
Lily was my daughter.
I read the report alone.
Then again.
My first instinct was not joy.
It was grief.
Three years.
First steps.
First word.
First fever.
First birthday.
Second.
Third.
All gone.
I drove to Emily’s apartment.
Did not enter until she invited me.
Lily was asleep.
A child’s drawing hung on the refrigerator.
Three stick figures.
Emily.
Lily.
A brown dog that apparently belonged to the neighbor.
No father.
“Why?”
Emily leaned against the counter.
“You remember when I told you I was pregnant?”
“Yes.”
“Who knew?”
“Leo.”
“And?”
I thought.
Marcus arranged security for Emily after the news became sensitive.
I did not like where the memory was going.
“Marcus.”
Emily nodded.
“Eight days later, Leo was killed.”
“That had nothing to do with you.”
“You still believe that?”
I looked at her.
After Leo’s death, Emily received a photograph.
She retrieved a copy from a locked box.
Leo leaving a restaurant.
Timestamped thirty minutes before his murder.
On the back:
ONE RILEY HEIR IS ENOUGH.
No signature.
“Why didn't you show me?”
“I tried.”
“When?”
“The night after the funeral.”
I remembered almost nothing from that week except rage.
Emily came to the mansion.
Marcus stopped her at the study because I was meeting men about retaliation.
“He said you couldn't be disturbed.”
My stomach tightened.
“What happened after?”
“Someone broke into my apartment.”
Nothing stolen.
Except medical paperwork confirming the pregnancy.
Two days later, Emily received instructions.
Leave Boston.
Tell Damon the baby died.
No police.
No Riley security.
If not, someone would finish what happened to Leo.
“Why believe them?”
Emily stared at me.
“Because your brother had just been buried.”
Fair.
She left.
Stayed with an aunt in Maine.
Changed doctors.
Used cash.
Then somebody found her anyway.
Not an attacker.
An older man.
Late fifties.
Gray eyes.
Scar along his left jaw.
He handed her a silver wolf coin.
“What did he say?”
Emily looked at me.
“He said, ‘If Damon ever becomes a man who can protect a child without owning her, show him this.’”
My father had a scar along his jaw.
May you like
Motorcycle accident.
I had not thought about it in years.
