Chapter 5 - THE BLOOD DOESN’T LIE
Lily hated the cheek swab.
Not because it hurt.
Because it was “too tickly.”
She sat at Eleanor’s kitchen table in purple pajamas while a private genetic specialist rubbed the inside of her mouth.
“This is disgusting.”
Dominic sat across from her.
“You survived a warehouse.”
“This is worse.”
Victor coughed to hide a laugh.
Lily pointed at Dominic.
“You have to do it too.”
“I know.”
“Same stick?”
“No.”
“Good.”
The technician swabbed Dominic.
Lily watched.
“Did you cry?”
“No.”
“I think you did inside.”
Victor turned toward the window.
Dominic gave him a look.
Then Lily asked the question everybody had been avoiding.
“If the test says you’re my dad, what happens?”
Dominic answered carefully.
“We talk.”
“That’s not what happens.”
“You’re right.”
He took a breath.
“You keep going to school.”
“Okay.”
“You keep seeing Grandma.”
Eleanor’s eyes filled.
Lily immediately looked at her.
“She stays?”
“Yes.”
“What if you’re mad at her?”
“I am.”
Eleanor looked down.
Dominic continued.
“And I’m grateful to her.”
Lily frowned.
“Both?”
“Adults can feel two things.”
“Sounds bad.”
“It often is.”
That earned a small smile.
The DNA result arrived twenty-seven hours later.
Dominic refused to open it without Eleanor.
He refused to open it without Lily.
They sat in the same kitchen.
Victor stood near the door.
Dominic held the envelope.
His hands were steady.
Everything else inside him was not.
Lily ate cereal.
“Open it.”
Dominic did.
PATERNITY PROBABILITY: 99.9998%.
He read it once.
Then again.
The paper blurred.
Lily stopped chewing.
“What does it say?”
Dominic looked at her.
For three years he had imagined impossible reunions.
Anna running into his arms.
Anna remembering him.
Anna calling Dad.
Reality was smaller.
A six-year-old girl with cereal milk on her upper lip.
A woman who raised her watching like she might stop breathing.
Dominic crouched beside Lily.
“It says I’m your father.”
Lily stared.
“For real?”
“For real.”
She looked at Eleanor.
Eleanor nodded.
Lily looked back.
“My name is Anna?”
Dominic’s throat tightened.
“It was.”
“Is Lily fake?”
“No.”
“Grandma made it.”
“Yes.”
“Then it’s mine.”
Dominic smiled through tears.
“Yes.”
She considered.
“Can I have both?”
“Absolutely.”
“Lily Anna.”
He swallowed.
“Lily Anna.”
She returned to her cereal.
That was apparently enough identity crisis for one breakfast.
Dominic laughed once.
Eleanor cried.
Then Lily looked up.
“Do I call you Daddy?”
Dominic stopped.
“Only if you want.”
“What do I call you now?”
“Dominic is fine.”
“That’s weird.”
“Then pick something else.”
She thought.
“Mr. Dominic.”
Victor lost the battle and laughed openly.
Dominic glared.
Lily smiled.
For ten minutes, the world felt almost gentle.
Then police arrived for Eleanor.
Two detectives.
No handcuffs visible.
Detective Ortiz entered first.
“Eleanor Hayes?”
Lily immediately moved closer to Eleanor.
Dominic stood.
“What is this?”
Ortiz looked apologetic.
“We need Mrs. Hayes to come downtown.”
“For what?”
“Identity fraud. Custodial interference. False documentation.”
Dominic’s expression turned dangerous.
“She saved my daughter.”
“I know.”
“Then why are you here?”
“Because saving a child does not erase everything that happened afterward.”
Lily grabbed Eleanor’s sweater.
“No.”
Eleanor crouched.
“It’s okay.”
“No.”
“Baby—”
“They’re taking you.”
Dominic’s voice cut through the room.
“No one is taking her away from you permanently.”
Ortiz looked at him.
Dominic looked back.
It was a promise he did not yet have legal authority to make.
He made it anyway.
Eleanor whispered, “Dominic.”
He crouched beside Lily.
“Look at me.”
She did.
“I’m going with Grandma.”
Ortiz started to speak.
Dominic raised a hand.
“I’m going.”
Lily’s breathing slowed slightly.
“Me too?”
“No.”
Her face collapsed.
Victor stepped forward.
“You can stay with me.”
Lily looked offended.
“You’re grumpy.”
Victor sighed.
“I’ve been working on it.”
Eleanor touched Lily’s cheek.
“I’ll come back.”
“You promise?”
Eleanor hesitated.
Dominic noticed.
“Don’t promise what you can’t control.”
Eleanor looked at him.
He had learned that lesson from losing Anna.
She nodded.
“I will do everything I can to come back.”
Lily began crying.
Dominic hated every second.
But he did not threaten detectives.
Did not call judges.
Did not make anyone disappear.
He hired the best legal team money could buy.
Then told them something they had never heard from him.
“Do not bury the truth.”
His attorney stared.
“Excuse me?”
“She used false names. She lied on school forms. She moved between shelters.”
“Yes.”
“She also removed my daughter from men who intended to kill her.”
“Understood.”
“I want both facts in the room.”
Eleanor spent six hours being questioned.
She was released pending review.
The district attorney did not immediately charge her.
Dominic drove her home himself.
Lily opened the apartment door before they knocked.
She threw herself at Eleanor.
Then, unexpectedly, at Dominic.
His arms froze around her.
She was lighter than memory.
Older than memory.
Real.
“I thought both of you were gone.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
“I’m here.”
The words felt insufficient.
But Lily held tighter.
Then Victor’s phone rang.
His face changed.
“Dominic.”
“What?”
“Matteo knows.”
Dominic looked up.
“Knows what?”
“The DNA result.”
Dominic’s entire body went still.
“That report was sealed.”
Victor nodded.
“We have a leak.”
Eleanor tightened her arms around Lily.
Dominic stood.
Victor continued.
“Matteo called an emergency board meeting for tomorrow morning.”
“Why?”
“He’s invoking the succession agreement.”
Dominic frowned.
“What succession agreement?”
Victor looked grim.
“The one your father amended after Claire died.”
Dominic knew the document.
If Dominic died without a living legal heir, voting control of several Moretti logistics companies shifted to a family trust chaired by Matteo.
If Anna lived—
Matteo got nothing.
Dominic stared at Lily.
Three years earlier, the bridge crash had not merely been an attempt to kill a father and daughter.
It had been a succession plan.
May you like
And now that Anna was alive, Matteo had every reason to finish what he started.
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