Chapter 7 - THE DNA REPORT
The man introduced himself as Dr. Samuel Price, a former consultant at St. Catherine's.
He had gray hair, tired eyes, and the expression of someone who had spent years regretting a decision.
Dominic stood.
“Start talking.”
Dr. Price glanced at Isabella.
“I'd prefer to speak privately.”
“No,” Isabella replied. “You don't get to decide what I can hear anymore.”
The doctor accepted that without argument.
He placed the sealed envelope on the bedside table.
“Three years ago, after Lucas was born, a DNA test was ordered. The results were altered before they reached the medical records.”
Dominic opened the envelope.
Inside were two reports.
The first identified Dominic as Lucas's biological father with a probability exceeding 99.9 percent.
The second, apparently issued days later, stated that the sample was inconclusive.
“Who changed it?” Dominic asked.
“Dr. Adrian Vale.”
“Why?”
“Because he was paid to create doubt. Matteo wanted leverage over you. If you believed the child wasn't yours, you might never search for him.”
Dominic looked at Isabella.
She seemed devastated, though not surprised.
“I always knew Lucas was yours,” she whispered. “But Adrian kept telling me you would reject him.”
Dr. Price nodded.
“He used the altered results to manipulate both of you.”
Dominic's voice hardened.
“And why are you telling me now?”
“Because I kept a copy of the original report. I was afraid to come forward. My wife received threats. My daughter was followed. I convinced myself silence would protect them.”
“Your silence protected Matteo.”
“I know.”
For a long moment, Dominic said nothing.
He wanted to punish the doctor. He wanted to make him feel the terror Isabella had endured, the helplessness of a father who had been denied his child.
But Lucas stirred in his sleep.
Dominic looked at the boy and forced himself to breathe.
“Give your full statement to the authorities. Every name. Every payment. If you leave anything out, I'll find it.”
Dr. Price nodded.
“I will.”
After he left, Isabella sat beside Dominic.
“There's something I haven't told you.”
He turned.
“When Lucas was born, Matteo came to the hospital himself. He said he wanted to make sure the baby survived.”
Dominic frowned.
“Why would he care?”
“Because he believed your father had left something to Lucas.”
Dominic's expression changed.
Their father had been an old-fashioned man who believed inheritance should be earned, not handed down. Yet shortly before his death, he had asked Dominic to keep a small brass key safe.
Dominic had never discovered what it opened.
He reached into his pocket and found the key still attached to his father's old chain.
Isabella stared at it.
“That was in the suitcase?”
“No. My father gave it to me before he died.”
“Then perhaps it's connected.”
Dominic called Anthony and ordered him to search the family archives.
Two hours later, Anthony returned with an old photograph of Dominic's father standing beside a wall safe in the mansion's library.
The brass key fit.
Inside lay a sealed document, a bank receipt, and a handwritten letter.
The document established a trust for Dominic's firstborn child.
The trust contained a substantial portion of the Moretti family's legitimate business holdings, along with voting rights that would become active when the child reached adulthood.
Matteo had spent three years trying to seize something that had never belonged to him.
But the letter contained a more disturbing revelation.
Dominic,
If this key has reached you, then the family has failed to protect the child I intended to safeguard.
There is a reason I created this trust. Years ago, I discovered that one of my sons had been used in a secret arrangement by people I trusted.
I never learned the full truth. I only know that the records were changed, and the woman who could explain them disappeared.
Do not assume the danger ends with Matteo.
Dominic read the final sentence twice.
“What secret arrangement?” Isabella asked.
“I don't know.”
Anthony placed another file on the table.
“We found this in the archive, Boss. It was hidden behind the trust documents.”
The file contained a photograph of a woman Dominic had never seen before.
She stood outside a maternity clinic, holding a newborn.
On the back was a date.
The same date Lucas had been born.
And beneath it, his father's handwriting:
IF THE FIRST CHILD SURVIVES, FIND THE SECOND.
Dominic stared at the photograph.
“Second?”
Isabella's face went pale.
She looked at the baby's blanket.
Then at the photograph.
“Dominic,” she whispered, “when I gave birth, Adrian told me there had been complications.”
“What kind of complications?”
She swallowed.
“He said one of the babies hadn't survived.”
The room fell silent.
Dominic looked at the photograph again.
There were two newborns.
Two blankets.
Two hospital bracelets.
May you like
And only one child had been brought home.
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