Chapter 10 - THE FALSE DNA TEST
William Barrett had prepared the lie years ago.
That was the most disturbing part.
The DNA report was dated five years earlier.
Long before I knew the boys existed.
Which meant William and Victor had anticipated the possibility I'd eventually find them.
Elena stared at the paperwork.
“How did they get the boys' DNA?”
We investigated.
Pediatric blood draw at age one.
Routine.
Samples were sent to a lab partly owned by Barrett Medical for insurance screening.
Someone retained material illegally.
They built false paternity exclusions around authentic samples.
“Can they win?” Elena asked.
Patricia shook her head.
“Not if we do this properly.”
Independent court-ordered testing.
Chain of custody.
Multiple labs if necessary.
The boys were mine.
Facts would win.
But William wasn't trying to win forever.
He wanted delay.
Delay until I turned forty?
No.
Three years was too long.
Something sooner mattered.
Then we found it.
The Harbor Trust annual restructuring vote.
Ten days away.
If Victor completed the restructuring before my sons were legally recognized, their future voting rights could be diluted dramatically.
Not eliminated.
Reduced.
Worth hundreds of millions.
There was the deadline.
Sloane confronted her father.
We recorded it legally with her consent in her own office.
“You forged DNA reports.”
William didn't deny enough.
He called it “protecting established interests.”
Sloane laughed in his face.
“You used my marriage as a balance-sheet strategy.”
“I gave you a future.”
“You gave yourself options.”
She asked whether he knew Victor threatened Enzo.
His reaction mattered.
“What happened to the boy?”
Real surprise.
William was corrupt.
Manipulative.
But perhaps not willing to harm children.
“Victor sent the note.”
William went silent.
Then:
“This has gone too far.”
Useful.
He agreed to cooperate.
Not from morality.
Self-preservation.
I'll take it.
He provided emails, contracts, and recordings.
Victor had been planning to remove my father permanently six years ago, then consolidate the trust before I produced heirs.
The shooting failed.
Elena's pregnancy complicated everything.
My mother hid her.
William exploited it.
Victor escalated.
Layers of betrayal.
Then William gave us one final recording.
Victor speaking to an unknown person:
Once Dominic signs the restructuring, Barrett becomes irrelevant too.
William's face hardened.
Victor planned to betray him.
Good.
Enemies become witnesses when greed overlaps badly.
But the unknown voice bothered me.
We enhanced the audio.
Elena listened once.
Then froze.
“You know him?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
She looked sick.
“My aunt's husband.”
Raymond Carter.
The man whose house we had just used as a safe place.
May you like
The man who helped Elena raise my sons.
The man the boys called Uncle Ray.
