Chapter 4
The DNA test was performed under legal chain of custody.
Cassian gave the sample himself.
Lucas provided one through his own attorney.
The result came back three days later.
Cassian was Lucas Brennan’s biological father.
Probability of paternity exceeded 99.99 percent.
Cassian sat alone when Katherine gave him the report.
No performance.
No shattered glass.
No orders.
Just twelve years suddenly rearranging themselves.
Eventually Katherine asked:
“You okay?”
“No.”
She nodded.
Better than lying.
Cassian looked at the page.
“He’s twelve.”
“Yes.”
“I missed everything.”
“Yes.”
“My father did that.”
“Partly.”
Cassian looked up.
Katherine continued.
“Dominic intercepted Leah. He created the secret.”
“And Lucinda continued it.”
“Yes.”
“But you also spent twelve years benefiting from a family system where nobody had to explain every private payment to you.”
Cassian stared at her.
“You’re blaming me for a son I didn’t know existed?”
“No.”
“I’m telling you the system that hid him belonged to your family.”
That was different.
Painful.
Accurate.
The support records were audited.
Direct payments to Leah and Lucas totaled approximately $680,000.
The Family Assistance Trust had spent far more.
Almost $3.8 million over twelve years carried under Lucas’s coded beneficiary file.
Recipient code:
LBR-12.
Cassian looked at Katherine.
“Where did the other three million go?”
“Consultants. Security. Administrative services. Private investigations.”
“Whose?”
“We’re tracing them.”
The largest vendor was Northgate Family Logistics.
$1.4 million.
Another was Meridian Protective Advisory.
$820,000.
A third:
Hollis Family Strategies.
$610,000.
All described vaguely as privacy, risk mitigation, and beneficiary management.
Lucinda had signed annual renewals for all three after Dominic died.
Before that, Dominic approved them.
Katherine frowned.
“That’s important.”
“Why?”
“Because this may not have started as Lucinda’s scheme.”
Cassian knew.
His father may have built something first.
Lucinda may simply have expanded it.
The hotel security footage was reviewed too.
At 5:41 p.m., Lucinda entered an upstairs conference suite with Leah and Lucas.
At 6:18, she left.
At 6:22, Millie appeared in the hallway alone.
She saw Lucas sitting outside the suite with Leah.
Millie approached.
No audio.
Lucas showed her something.
Likely the photograph she remembered.
At 6:24, Lucinda returned.
Her body language changed instantly.
She took Millie by the shoulder and led her away.
At 6:27, Millie disappeared through the service access.
At 6:42, Leah and Lucas took the service elevator down.
At 6:47, the Northgate car departed.
Cassian found Millie at 7:02.
The timeline mattered.
Lucinda did not lock Millie away because the child was noisy.
Not that night.
She locked her away immediately after Millie saw Lucas.
Millie could identify that a boy had been at the hotel before Cassian ever knew there was a boy to look for.
Then investigators found something in the conference suite trash.
A torn draft document.
Only half survived.
But one line remained:
Acknowledgment of long-term paternal concealment by Cassian Romano.
Cassian read it twice.
May you like
Lucinda had not merely been preparing Lucas to meet his father.
She had been preparing paperwork stating Cassian had deliberately hidden him.
