Chapter 3 - The Blood Truth
The DNA results arrived at midnight,
delivered by a courier who looked terrified of the men guarding my gate.
I sat in my study,
the only light coming from a single desk lamp.
I tore the envelope open,
my breath hitching in my throat.
"Probability of Paternity: 99.99%."
"Relationship: Identical Twin Siblings."
It was official.
Emma was my daughter.
My chest felt tight,
a mixture of overwhelming joy and scorching anger.
I had missed seven years of her life.
I had missed her first steps,
her first words,
her laughter.
She had lived in poverty,
wearing duct-taped shoes,
while I lived in a mansion built on the lie of her absence.
I pulled up the old medical records from the night of the "death."
I looked at the signatures of the attending physicians.
Dr. Julian Vane.
He had been the head of the maternity ward back then.
He had been the one to tell me Grace didn't make it.
I searched his name in my private database.
He had retired two years after the birth,
moving to a private island in the Caribbean.
Nobody retires to a private island on a surgeon's salary unless they have "other" sources of income.
I picked up the phone.
"Cassian,
get the jet ready."
"We're going to Grand Cayman."
"And get me everything we have on the Blackwell family trust."
I started to see the pattern.
My father had been a cold,
calculating man who hated Grace.
He had thought she wasn't "worthy" of the Blackwell name.
If there were two heirs,
the inheritance would be split,
or worse,
the mother would have more leverage.
Had my own father orchestrated the kidnapping of my daughter?
Had he paid a doctor to lie to me and tell me my wife was dead?
I looked at the security footage from the park again.
I zoomed in on the woman who had dropped Emma off.
She was wearing a heavy coat and a hat,
but as she turned,
the camera caught a glimpse of her neck.
There was a tattoo there,
a small,
faded lily of the valley.
My heart stopped.
That was the flower Grace loved most.
That woman wasn't just "Aunt Karen."
She was someone who knew Grace intimately.
I walked back to the girls' room,
standing in the doorway.
They were asleep,
tangled together in a mess of blankets and stuffed animals.
They looked so peaceful,
so unaware of the storm I was about to unleash.
I vowed then,
staring at the two of them,
that I would burn the world down to find out what happened to their mother.
If Grace had been alive all these years,
May you like
running and hiding,
then the people who hunted her would soon learn what it meant to hunt a Blackwell.
