Chapter 2 - THE BLOOD TEST THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN IMPOSSIBLE
I laughed.
Not because anything was funny.
Because the alternative was screaming.
“My daughters are related to you?”
Elias remained completely still.
“Apparently.”
“That is impossible.”
“Probably.”
“Probably?”
Mercer stepped in quickly.
“The result does not say Elias is the father.”
“Good.”
I looked at Elias.
“Obviously.”
His eyebrow lifted.
Wrong moment.
Mercer continued.
“It says the infants share genetic markers strongly consistent with a close Vance-family relationship.”
I felt sick.
“How?”
Elias took out his phone.
“Run every male blood relative.”
One of his guards left immediately.
I stared.
“You have DNA records for your relatives?”
He looked at me.
“You don't want to know.”
Correct.
Then Mercer revealed something worse.
Victor had received the same preliminary result.
That was why his behavior changed.
“He first ordered the babies abandoned with you.”
My throat tightened.
“Then someone called him.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
“After the call, he ordered them recovered alive.”
Elias's jaw hardened.
“Recovered.”
Mercer nodded.
“Victor believes the twins can give him leverage over someone powerful.”
Someone Vance.
A baby cried again.
This time Elias walked toward the nursery.
I tried to follow.
My knees failed.
He caught me before I hit the floor.
For one second I was pressed against the chest of a man every newspaper in New York called dangerous.
He smelled like cold air, expensive soap, and gun oil.
“Easy.”
“I need them.”
“I know.”
He carried me.
I hated needing that.
I hated more that he understood without mocking me.
Inside the nursery, my girls slept in two bassinets.
Tiny hats.
Tiny fists.
Alive.
I touched each cheek.
“Have you named them?” Elias asked.
I swallowed.
“Victor wouldn't let me.”
His expression darkened.
“He said names would make me sentimental.”
Elias looked at the babies.
“What do you want to call them?”
The question broke something open.
I had whispered names to myself during pregnancy.
Names I was afraid to say.
“Emma.”
I touched the first baby.
“And Lucy.”
The second.
Elias repeated them softly.
“Emma and Lucy.”
The names became real.
Then his phone rang.
His guard returned with a file.
Elias read.
His face changed.
“What?”
I asked.
“There's one living Vance relative close enough genetically to explain the match.”
“Who?”
“My younger brother.”
I stared.
“I didn't know you had a brother.”
“Most people don't.”
His name was Julian Vance.
Thirty-three.
Former physician.
Disappeared from New York five years earlier after a family conflict.
Officially living in Europe.
Unofficially?
Elias didn't know.
Then Mercer whispered:
“I do.”
Everyone turned.
“Where is he?” Elias asked.
Mercer looked at me.
“Victor's basement.”
My blood went cold.
“What?”
“Julian Vance has been your husband's prisoner for almost a year.”
Then Mercer added the sentence that made the room tilt.
“And Ava... Victor used Julian's stored genetic material during your fertility treatments.”
I stopped breathing.
May you like
I had never received fertility treatments.
At least none I knew about.
