Chapter 7 - THE DNA TEST LILY DIDN’T NEEDDeclan never asked for a DNA test.
His attorney did.
Sienna understood why.
Custody.
Inheritance.
Legal recognition.
Medical history.
Paperwork required facts feelings could not replace.
Still, when Peter mentioned the test, Declan's face hardened.
“She is mine.”
Peter said carefully:
“I believe you.”
“She has my face.”
“I have eyes.”
“Then why—”
“Because a court doesn't certify paternity based on your jawline.”
Sienna almost laughed.
Declan looked betrayed.
The test was performed privately.
Lily treated it like an adventure.
“So they rub my cheek?”
“Yes,” Sienna said.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Do I get a sticker?”
The nurse promised two.
Declan submitted his sample afterward.
He looked more nervous than when entering Pier 19.
Sienna noticed.
“You think I'm lying?”
“No.”
“Then what?”
“I think maybe life has trained me not to trust good things until somebody stamps them.”
That was sad enough that she stopped teasing.
The result came four days later.
99.9998 percent.
Lily Voss Hale.
Biologically Declan’s.
The report sat between them.
Declan touched her name.
“She doesn't have to change it.”
Sienna looked up.
“What?”
“Her surname.”
“I wasn't planning to.”
“I know.”
“Then why say it?”
“Because Peter assumed she would.”
He looked annoyed.
“I told him if he brought me another document with Lily Voss printed as though the decision had already been made, I'd fire him.”
“Did you?”
“Twice.”
“Peter still works for you.”
“He ignores me.”
Sienna smiled.
That was the first time she saw something like family around Declan that did not feel dangerous.
The next challenge was telling Lily about Declan's absence in age-appropriate terms.
They did it with a child therapist.
No crime details.
No murders.
No criminal inheritance.
Just:
Declan had family members who frightened him and kept him from Sienna.
Other adults lied.
Sienna believed he was gone forever.
Declan did not know Lily existed.
Lily listened.
Then asked:
“Why didn't you Google Mom?”
Declan stared.
The therapist tried not to laugh.
“I did later.”
“When?”
“When you were four.”
“And you still didn't come?”
There it was.
Declan did not hide.
“I was afraid my life would hurt you.”
Lily frowned.
“Did Mom decide that?”
“No.”
“Did I?”
“No.”
“Then you decided for us.”
Sienna looked at the therapist.
The woman smiled faintly.
Declan swallowed.
“Yes.”
“Was that bad?”
“Yes.”
“Okay.”
Lily picked up a crayon.
Apparently, six-year-old justice had concluded.
Afterward, Declan sat alone in the hallway.
Sienna joined him.
“She destroyed me in three sentences.”
“She’s efficient.”
“She gets that from you.”
“Obviously.”
He looked at her.
“You taught her that.”
“What?”
“To ask whether someone made the decision for her.”
Sienna thought about six years of single motherhood.
Teaching Lily to say no.
Teaching her no adult deserved a hug simply because they asked.
Teaching her that being polite was not the same as surrendering boundaries.
“I guess.”
Declan looked proud.
That irritated her.
“You don't get credit.”
“I wasn't taking it.”
“Good.”
Their relationship remained careful.
Declan saw Lily twice a week at first.
Always with Sienna nearby.
Then Saturday afternoons.
He learned things.
Lily hated bananas but loved banana bread.
She could read above grade level and spell terribly.
She talked in her sleep.
She was terrified of automatic flushing toilets.
She loved dinosaurs despite insisting they were “mostly ugly.”
Declan bought her nothing expensive.
That was Sienna’s rule.
The first gift he gave her was a used telescope.
“Used?”
Sienna asked.
He looked offended.
“You told me no extravagant gifts.”
“I did.”
“This cost eighty dollars.”
“Why a telescope?”
“Because she said she wanted to see Saturn.”
Sienna softened.
The three of them stood on Sienna's apartment roof that Saturday.
It was freezing.
Lily looked through the telescope.
“I see it!”
Declan smiled.
Sienna watched him watching her.
A father's love beginning six years late.
It did not erase anything.
But it was real.
The eviction problem remained.
Sienna found another apartment.
Smaller.
Cheaper.
Across town.
She paid the deposit herself after picking up four extra shifts.
Declan discovered this only when Lily told him.
“We're moving Saturday.”
He looked at Sienna.
“You found a place?”
“Yes.”
“Do you need help?”
There it was again.
Not money.
Help.
“Boxes.”
“I can do boxes.”
“No men with guns.”
“I can arrange men without guns.”
She laughed.
Moving day looked absurd.
Declan Voss, alleged crime lord according to several newspapers, carrying a secondhand bookcase down three flights of stairs while Mrs. Alvarez instructed him not to scratch the wall.
“Turn it.”
“I am turning it.”
“Other way.”
“There are two ways.”
“Then choose the correct one.”
Sienna nearly fell over laughing.
Lily supervised with a juice box.
At the new apartment, Declan assembled her bed.
Incorrectly.
Twice.
Sienna sat on the floor.
“The feared Declan Voss defeated by IKEA.”
“This company is criminal.”
“You would know.”
He looked at her.
For one second, she worried she had gone too far.
Then he laughed.
“Fair.”
The moment became dangerous in another way.
Normal.
They had once dreamed of normal.
Takeout.
Cheap furniture.
A kitchen with a dishwasher.
Now Declan could buy twenty houses.
And somehow assembling a child's bed in a rented apartment looked more meaningful than anything money could purchase.
That evening Lily fell asleep early.
Declan stood near the door.
“I should go.”
“Yes.”
He didn't move.
Sienna noticed.
“What?”
“I want to ask something.”
“No dinner.”
He almost smiled.
“Not that.”
“What?”
“Why did you never tell Lily about me?”
Sienna's face changed.
“I did.”
“What?”
“Not your name.”
She looked toward the bedroom.
“But I told her her father loved old cars.”
Declan swallowed.
“That he hated olives.”
He smiled.
“I still do.”
“That he once drove six hours because I mentioned missing my grandmother’s apple pie.”
“Seven.”
“See? Annoying.”
She looked at him.
“I told her he had a terrible singing voice.”
“Untrue.”
“Deeply true.”
Declan's eyes filled.
“Why?”
Sienna understood the real question.
Why preserve pieces of him if she believed he abandoned her?
“Because I loved you before I hated you.”
Silence.
“And Lily deserved the parts of you that were good even if you never came back.”
His face broke.
“Sienna.”
“Don't.”
“I’m not asking for forgiveness.”
“Good.”
“I just…”
He stopped.
She waited.
“I don't know how to carry what you did alone.”
Her anger disappeared.
Six years.
She had wanted him to understand how hard it was.
Now that he did, she wanted to protect him from it.
Human beings were ridiculous.
“You don't carry it,” she said.
“What?”
“The past.”
She looked toward Lily’s room.
“You carry your part now.”
He absorbed that.
Then nodded.
As he opened the door, Sienna said:
“Declan.”
He turned.
“Saturday.”
“What?”
“Dinner.”
His face changed.
“Lily?”
“No.”
He stopped breathing.
“Just us.”
Sienna smiled faintly.
“You still leave when I say the conversation is over.”
“Yes.”
“No arguments.”
“None.”
She looked at him.
“Five o'clock.”
He smiled.
Not Mafia boss.
Not heir.
The twenty-two-year-old boy from the rusted Chevy appeared for one second.
“I’ll be there.”
But before Saturday came, federal investigators uncovered the results of Alessandro Voss’s exhumation.
His death had not been natural.
Toxicology revealed a medication in his system that had never been prescribed.
A drug capable of causing dangerous heart rhythm abnormalities.
And fingerprints from the old medication box had survived beneath the sealed plastic evidence bag retained by the family doctor.
They belonged to Carmine.
And one other person.
May you like
Evelyn Voss.
Declan's mother.
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