Chapter 2 - THE SAMPLE VERONICA SHOULD NEVER HAVE HAD
Lila did not understand DNA.
She understood that Veronica had frightened her.
That mattered more.
Dominic sat beside her on the edge of the bed while Michael Rourke waited near the door.
“Am I in trouble?”
“No.”
“I went in her room.”
“Yes.”
Lila’s eyes dropped.
“I know I’m not supposed to.”
Dominic softened.
“Why did you?”
“She took my bracelet.”
“What bracelet?”
“Mommy’s.”
Dominic stopped.
Isabella’s bracelet.
A thin gold chain Lila wore only on special occasions.
Veronica had told Dominic that Lila misplaced it two weeks earlier.
“She had it?”
“In her drawer.”
Dominic felt another layer of anger.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I wanted to find it first.”
He nodded slowly.
That sounded like Lila.
“What happened?”
“I opened the jewelry box.”
“And saw the paper.”
“Yes.”
“Did you read it?”
“Not really.”
She looked at him.
“I saw my name.”
Dominic took her hand.
“You did the right thing bringing it to me.”
“I stole it.”
“You took something that contained information about you.”
He paused.
“We’ll talk about going into bedrooms later.”
That earned the smallest smile.
Then Lila asked:
“Do I have a brother?”
Dominic’s chest tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“Would that be bad?”
“No.”
“Would he take my room?”
Dominic almost laughed.
“No.”
“My toys?”
“No.”
“Would you love him more?”
There it was.
The real fear.
Dominic leaned closer.
“No child could make me love you less.”
Lila studied his face.
“Even a boy?”
His expression changed.
“Why did you ask that?”
She shrugged.
“Veronica said boys matter more in families like ours.”
Dominic became very still.
“When?”
“Last week.”
“What exactly?”
Lila twisted the blanket.
“She said when you die everything needs a son.”
Dominic looked toward Michael.
The security chief’s face hardened.
That was not simply cruelty.
It was preparation.
Someone had been teaching Lila to believe her place could be replaced.
Dominic kissed her forehead.
“Veronica was wrong.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Even about bloodline?”
“Especially that.”
Lila relaxed.
Dominic did not.
His attorney, Grace Ellison, arrived within an hour.
The laboratory report was photographed, copied, and secured.
The facility named on it was legitimate.
Boston-based.
Relationship testing.
Grace called.
They would not release information without proper authorization.
Good.
That meant someone had submitted samples using paperwork.
The question:
Who?
Veronica’s wedding-planning office contained one clue.
A receipt from the laboratory.
Paid through:
V.M. FAMILY RESEARCH LLC.
Registered eight months earlier.
Owner hidden behind an agent.
Grace looked at Dominic.
“Probably Veronica.”
“Find out.”
“We will.”
Michael found something else.
Security footage.
Two months earlier Veronica entered Lila’s bedroom carrying nothing.
Three minutes later she left holding Lila’s hairbrush.
Dominic watched twice.
No interpretation needed.
Another camera showed her returning it forty minutes later.
A sample.
Stolen.
Then Grace pointed at the DNA report.
“What bothers me is the wording.”
Dominic frowned.
“First-degree biological relative.”
“Yes.”
“Meaning?”
“Usually parent-child or full sibling.”
Dominic stared.
“Full sibling?”
“Potentially.”
“Lila’s mother has been dead four years.”
“I know.”
“So?”
Grace shook her head.
“We don’t speculate.”
Dominic hated that phrase.
She continued.
“The report says shared paternal line, but this may be a preliminary interpretation rather than final kinship classification.”
“So we need the second sample.”
“Yes.”
“Can we identify the child?”
“With legal process or cooperation.”
Dominic looked toward Veronica’s empty guest suite.
She had left with her attorney.
No confrontation.
No confession.
Just one message to Dominic:
When you’re ready to hear the truth, call me.
He deleted it.
Then restored it from trash because Grace nearly yelled at him about preserving evidence.
“Civilization again,” Dominic muttered.
Grace ignored him.
The laboratory’s privacy label had hidden the second child’s name.
But the reference number connected to an invoice.
That invoice included a pediatric sample collection fee.
Location:
Hawthorne Preparatory School.
Connecticut.
Dominic frowned.
Boarding school.
Michael searched publicly available records.
Nothing specific.
Then found one photograph from a charity fundraiser.
Students standing beside donors.
A boy in the back row.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
Maybe ten.
Maybe eleven.
Dominic stopped.
The boy looked like someone.
Not Dominic exactly.
Not Lila.
Someone older.
Familiar.
Grace noticed.
“What?”
Dominic zoomed in.
The boy’s face triggered a memory he could not place.
Then Michael said:
“Sir.”
“What?”
“Look at the chin.”
Dominic did.
Same cleft.
Same slight asymmetry.
His brother Gabriel had that chin.
Gabriel Bellini.
Dead twelve years.
No children.
At least none anyone knew about.
Dominic felt the story change.
“What’s the boy’s name?”
Michael read the fundraiser caption.
“Ethan Mercer.”
Dominic stared.
Mercer.
The surname belonged to someone else in his past too.
Dr. Evelyn Mercer.
His brother’s former physician.
May you like
And suddenly Veronica’s DNA test no longer looked like a secret affair.
It looked like an old Bellini family secret.
