Chapter 14 - My Father's Last Lie
The boardroom occupied the sixty-third floor of Moretti Tower.
I arrived carrying Grace.
Not because I wanted to use my daughter as evidence.
Because I refused to let anyone discuss her future while pretending she was an abstract legal object.
Luka walked beside me.
My mother came.
My father came.
Derek came under subpoena.
Victor’s representatives sat across the room.
Victor himself joined by video through counsel.
The board chair began.
Then the doors opened.
Brittany entered.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
She carried a sealed envelope.
DNA results.
“How?”
Luka demanded.
She smiled.
“Information travels.”
She handed copies to the board.
PATERNITY EXCLUDED: LUKA MORETTI.
My heart stopped.
I looked at Luka.
He stared at the paper.
No.
That made no sense.
Derek had been excluded.
Now Luka too?
Then who was Grace’s father?
Brittany’s voice filled the room.
“The child has no verified biological connection to Mr. Moretti.”
Victor smiled from the screen.
“The succession claim fails.”
The board began murmuring.
I looked at my father.
He was staring at the envelope.
Not shocked.
Terrified.
“Dad.”
He looked at me.
“What did you do?”
His eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
The entire room disappeared around us.
“What did you do?”
“I moved the sample.”
“When?”
“Twenty-five years ago.”
Luka turned.
“You said you moved it anonymously.”
“I did.”
“But M-17?”
My father covered his face.
“I changed the labels.”
Everything stopped.
The sample Derek later accessed under M-17 had not been Luka’s.
Not technically.
“What was it?”
I whispered.
My father looked toward my mother.
“Elena knows.”
She shook her head.
“No.”
“Elena.”
“No, Samuel.”
“What?”
I demanded.
My mother began crying.
My father finally said it.
“When I learned Victor was trying to obtain Luka’s sample, I switched the cryogenic identifiers.”
“M-17 became a decoy.”
“Whose DNA was inside?”
My father looked at me.
“Mine.”
I could not understand.
Then I did.
And almost dropped Grace.
“No.”
My father stood.
“Emma, listen.”
“YOU USED YOUR OWN SAMPLE?”
“It was never supposed to be used.”
The room erupted.
Luka grabbed the table.
My mother screamed at Samuel.
Derek stared in horror.
And then my father clarified the nightmare.
“Not for insemination.”
“It was a reference control sample.”
“But when Victor reconstructed the database, he followed the false label.”
My mind barely worked.
If Mercer used the material under M-17…
My father was Grace’s biological father.
Which would mean—
No.
Impossible.
The laboratory result from Brittany was real enough to exclude Luka.
But something else was wrong.
A fertility clinic could not create an embryo using my own father’s DNA without genetic testing exposing the relationship.
My father realized it too.
He grabbed the report.
“This isn’t right.”
He scanned the markers.
“This sample isn’t mine.”
Brittany’s smile disappeared.
My father looked at Luka.
“It isn’t yours either.”
“Then whose?”
Samuel stared at the marker set.
His face drained of color.
“I know this profile.”
He turned toward Victor’s screen.
Victor stopped smiling.
My father whispered,
“The original M-17 decoy sample belonged to Victor Holloway.”
Derek slowly turned toward his father.
The room became dead silent.
If that report was genuine, Grace’s biological father was genetically related to Victor.
But Derek had already been excluded.
Victor’s eyes went cold.
My father looked at him.
May you like
“You had another son.”
Victor ended the video call.
