Chapter 2 - Three Years Earlier
Three years earlier, Adrian Vale had been holding nine-month-old Elodie when his sister walked into their kitchen carrying an envelope.
Maren still remembered the exact sound it made when Celestine dropped it onto the counter.
Soft.
Almost harmless.
“You need to read that,” Celestine told Adrian.
He frowned.
“What is it?”
“A DNA report.”
Maren laughed at first.
She genuinely thought Celestine was joking.
Then Adrian opened it.
His face changed.
Maren reached for the pages.
“What does it say?”
Adrian pulled them away.
“Elodie isn’t mine.”
The room seemed to tilt.
Maren stared at him.
“What?”
Celestine folded her arms.
“I told you something was wrong.”
Maren turned on her.
“You did this?”
“I protected my brother.”
“From his own daughter?”
Adrian looked sick.
“Maren, stop.”
“No. Call the clinic.”
Celestine answered immediately.
“I already verified it.”
That should have been the first warning.
But Adrian was devastated.
And Celestine had prepared more.
Two days later, she produced bank transfers supposedly showing that Maren had received money from another man during her pregnancy.
Then came screenshots of messages.
Then an anonymous statement claiming Maren had admitted she was only with Adrian because of the Vale fortune.
Every piece looked real.
Every piece pointed in the same direction.
And every time Maren tried to investigate, something disappeared.
An email account.
A phone number.
A medical appointment record.
Adrian wanted to believe her.
Maren saw that.
But Celestine never gave him enough time.
“You’re being manipulated,” Maren told him.
Adrian’s eyes were red.
“Then explain the DNA test.”
“I can’t explain something I never agreed to.”
He looked toward Elodie’s crib.
That hesitation destroyed Maren.
“Do you think I cheated on you?”
Adrian said nothing.
Silence gave her the answer.
Within a month, Maren left Massachusetts.
Not because Celestine won.
Because Adrian refused to stand beside her while she fought.
Maren took Elodie to Oregon, found work at a small architecture firm, rented a two-bedroom apartment, and rebuilt their life.
Adrian sent money.
She returned it.
He requested visitation twice.
Both times Celestine’s attorney threatened Maren with fraud allegations if she brought Elodie near the Vale family.
Eventually Adrian stopped asking.
For almost three years, Maren heard nothing.
Then, six weeks before Adrian’s wedding, an overnight envelope arrived.
Inside was a handwritten note from an attorney named Harold Mercer.
Mrs. Hart,
I represented the late Elias Vale.
Before his death, Mr. Vale ordered an independent review of several family records.
One of those records concerns your daughter.
Please contact me before Adrian Vale’s wedding.
Do not inform Celestine Vale.
Maren read the final sentence three times.
Then she noticed something else inside the envelope.
A photocopy of the original laboratory intake sheet from three years earlier.
Beside Elodie’s sample number was a handwritten notation:
SPECIMEN REPLACED BY REQUEST.
May you like
And underneath it were two initials.
C.V.
