Chapter 13 - THE DNA RESULTS IN THE RED ENVELOPE
"Step away from that gate, Richard!"
Daniel’s voice cut through the playground noise like a whip crack. Several parents standing near the administrative doors turned in shock. A crossing guard raised her hand in alarm.
Richard Vance stopped three paces from the school’s main security buzzer. He didn't flinch. Slowly, elegantly, he turned around, lowered his sunglasses, and offered a cold, practiced smile that didn't reach his slate-gray eyes.
"Hello, little brother," Richard said smoothly, his voice carrying the calm cadence of a man who owned every room he walked into. "You’ve gotten faster. Parenting must be keeping your cardio up."
"Get off this property before I break your jaw on this concrete," Daniel snarled, closing the distance until barely two feet separated them. Daniel’s chest rose and fell in ragged heaves, his fists balled into knots of bone and sinew. "You don't come near my daughter. You don't come near Noah."
Richard chuckled softly, shaking his head with mock pity. "Always so emotional, Daniel. That was your fatal flaw five years ago, wasn't it? You were so busy grieving Rachel that you didn't even notice what was happening right under your nose in the kitchen. If mother hadn't kicked your front door down, you’d still be staring at your phone while your family bled out."
"Shut up!" Daniel lunged, grabbing the lapels of Richard's thousand-dollar overcoat, slamming him back against the steel perimeter fence. The chain-link rattled violently.
Across the lawn, Lily’s head snapped up from her bench. Her eyes widened in horror. She recognized the shouting. She saw her father. She shoved her notebook into her backpack, grabbed Noah by his red jacket, and pulled him behind the trunk of the massive maple tree, shielding him with her own body just as she had done five years ago in the hallway.
"Daniel, look at me," Richard whispered, his voice dangerously low, entirely unbothered by the hands gripping his throat. "Call the cops. Make a scene. Please. Let the principal come out here and watch you commit aggravated assault on school grounds. It will look fantastic in the emergency custody filing I'm submitting at two o'clock."
Daniel’s grip faltered. "Custody? You have no legal standing to file for anything! You're an embezzler with an active warrant in two states!"
"Warrants that were settled three months ago, paid in full with interest," Richard sneered, reaching into his interior breast pocket. Daniel flinched, bracing for a weapon, but Richard merely pulled out a thick crimson envelope sealed with official state stamps. "I'm not filing for Lily. I have no interest in that broken, damaged little girl."
Richard tapped the envelope against Daniel’s chest.
"I’m filing for Noah."
A bucket of ice water seemed to dump over Daniel’s skull. His ears rang. "What are you talking about? Noah is my son! Rachel gave birth to him three weeks before she died!"
"Did she?" Richard’s lips curled into a venomous, triumphant smirk. "You were working eighty-hour weeks at the firm, Daniel. Rachel was hospitalized for four months of that high-risk pregnancy in a private clinic upstate—a clinic whose chief administrator happened to be Vanessa’s private physician."
Richard shoved Daniel back with surprising strength, straightening his tie with pristine composure.
May you like
"Open the envelope, Daniel. Look at the genetic sequencing. Rachel’s baby died in utero at twenty-eight weeks. The boy you call your son... the boy you brought home from that clinic... was carried to term by Vanessa. Conceived through private donor insemination using my genetic material. Noah isn't your son, Daniel. He's mine. And his mother is getting out of prison tomorrow morning to come take him home."
***
