Chapter 5 - THE TEST THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING
I took the DNA test twice.
Not because I doubted Lily.
Because after learning the truth about my own father, I no longer trusted a piece of paper simply because it had a laboratory logo.
Independent clinic.
Different state.
No Moretti employees.
No private family doctor.
Naomi insisted.
I respected that.
The result arrived the next morning.
99.9996%.
Lily Ellis was my daughter.
My knees actually weakened.
I had faced guns without blinking.
I had watched men twice my age beg me for mercy.
One PDF made me sit down.
Naomi stood across the room.
Neither of us spoke.
Finally:
“She’s mine.”
Her expression sharpened.
“She’s ours.”
I looked up.
“Yes.”
That correction mattered.
“She’s ours.”
For several minutes I stared through the window.
Four years.
First steps.
First birthday.
First fever.
First nightmare.
Someone else had been there.
Daniel.
I finally asked:
“Did she call him Dad?”
Naomi nodded.
I expected jealousy.
Instead, grief came.
“For how long?”
“Until he died.”
“What does she know about him?”
“That he loved her.”
“Good.”
Naomi looked surprised.
“I’m not going to erase him.”
Something softened in her face.
Barely.
“Thank you.”
Then small footsteps approached.
Lily appeared wearing dinosaur pajamas.
She rubbed one eye.
“Mommy?”
Naomi immediately knelt.
“What’s wrong?”
“Bad dream.”
Lily looked at me.
Then at the papers.
“Are you my daddy?”
The question landed with brutal simplicity.
Naomi froze.
I knelt several feet away.
“I’m your biological father.”
Lily frowned.
“What’s bio-logical?”
I almost laughed.
“It means… I helped make you.”
She considered that.
“Like cookies?”
Julie, standing in the doorway, made a strangled sound.
“Sort of.”
“Did you know?”
There it was.
The question I would probably spend the rest of my life answering.
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because grown-ups made some mistakes.”
“Mommy?”
I looked at Naomi.
“No.”
My answer came immediately.
“Not your mommy.”
Naomi’s eyes filled.
Lily walked closer.
“Would you have wanted me?”
My throat closed.
I didn’t know who taught children to ask questions that could destroy grown men.
“Yes.”
She studied me carefully.
“All the time?”
“Yes.”
“Even when I cry?”
“Yes.”
“When I throw up?”
I hesitated.
She narrowed her eyes.
“Yes.”
She smiled.
“Okay.”
Then she climbed into Naomi’s arms.
Not mine.
That was exactly where she belonged.
Marco entered a minute later.
He had found Daniel’s final encrypted archive.
Inside was a video recorded forty-eight hours before his death.
Daniel appeared on screen.
Tired.
Frightened.
“If Matteo Moretti ever sees this, he needs to know something.”
I leaned closer.
“Salvatore didn’t arrange Naomi’s disappearance.”
Naomi gasped.
Daniel continued:
“He tried to find her too.”
I stared.
“If Salvatore wasn’t the one threatening Naomi…”
Daniel looked directly into the camera.
May you like
“The person who ordered her to disappear was Sofia Moretti.”
My mother.
