Chapter 6 - The Test That Was Never Finished
Nathan did not chase Victoria.
That was exactly what she expected.
Instead, he ordered an independent DNA test for himself and Lily.
No family laboratory.
No Mercer employee.
No Harold Vance.
Grace agreed immediately.
“I should have done this months ago.”
Nathan shook his head.
“You were threatened. We do it correctly now.”
Two days later, Nathan sat across from Grace in a private medical office.
The physician placed the verified report on the table.
Probability of paternity:
99.9997%.
Nathan stared at the number.
For several seconds, he couldn’t speak.
Then Lily reached across Grace’s lap and grabbed his finger.
Nathan’s eyes filled.
“Hi,” he whispered.
Lily studied him.
Nathan gave a broken laugh.
“I guess I’m your dad.”
Grace turned away, wiping her cheek.
For Nathan, it was both a gift and an indictment.
He had a daughter.
Fourteen months of her life were already gone.
And someone had deliberately stolen them from him.
He looked at Grace.
“I’m sorry.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I should have.”
“You tried to contact me.”
Nathan remembered every unanswered call.
Every returned email.
Every explanation Victoria had offered after they reconciled.
Grace probably wants distance.
Grace changed numbers.
Grace moved away.
Nathan suddenly froze.
“How did Victoria know your number was disconnected?”
Grace frowned.
“What?”
Nathan remembered Victoria saying it years earlier.
He had never told her.
His blood went cold.
That evening, his security team recovered metadata from an old cloud backup.
Nathan’s missing messages to Grace had not simply gone unanswered.
Several had been forwarded.
To an email address registered through a shell company.
That company’s administrative contact led to Harold Vance’s office.
But the forwarding rule had been created from Nathan’s personal laptop.
On a night when Nathan had been in Chicago.
Victoria had been staying at his apartment.
Nathan stared at the timestamp.
She had known about Grace from the beginning.
His phone buzzed.
Daniel had located Harold.
Not at his office.
Not at home.
At a private storage facility outside Boston.
Nathan drove there with his attorney and security.
Harold was gone when they arrived.
But the storage unit remained unlocked.
Inside were boxes marked with Mercer family dates.
Nathan opened one.
Bank statements.
Medical records.
Old correspondence.
Then he found a photograph.
His father Charles stood beside Evelyn.
Between them was a young woman Nathan had never seen.
Around her neck hung the exact same silver crest Lily now carried.
On the back, Evelyn had written:
SARAH — 1992.
May you like
And underneath:
WE SHOULD HAVE TOLD NATHAN.
