Chapter 15 - The Lowest Point
The police arrested Malcolm the next morning.
He was released within four hours.
His attorneys attacked the chain of custody.
They called Luka a criminal intimidator.
They called Rebecca biased.
They called me emotionally unstable.
Then Derek released photographs of me entering Luka’s estate.
Tabloids picked them up.
ABANDONED WIFE MOVES IN WITH TATTOOED BILLIONAIRE HOURS AFTER BIRTH.
I stared at the headline.
Luka took my phone away.
“Stop reading.”
“They believe him.”
“Some do.”
“The trust board suspended distribution.”
Rebecca entered the room.
“It’s temporary.”
“How temporary?”
“I don’t know.”
Everything was happening at once.
Isla would not stop crying.
I had barely slept.
My marriage was over.
My dead father had hidden an entire life from me.
I had discovered a stolen twin sister only to learn she had already died.
And the daughter of that sister had slept with my husband.
I finally broke.
I sat on the nursery floor and cried so hard I could barely breathe.
Rosa took Isla.
No one told me to be strong.
No one told me it would be fine.
Luka simply sat on the floor across from me.
For nearly ten minutes, he said nothing.
Then I looked at him.
“Why did you sign the certificate?”
He gave me the real answer this time.
“Because when I saw Derek leave, I remembered being seven.”
I wiped my face.
“What happened when you were seven?”
“My father disappeared.”
“Malcolm?”
“No.”
He looked toward the window.
“My biological father owed money to men connected to Malcolm’s research companies.”
“My mother ran.”
“Did she protect you?”
“She tried.”
“What happened?”
“She died when I was eleven.”
His voice remained calm.
But his eyes did not.
“I spent years believing nobody stayed.”
He looked at Isla.
“Then your father stayed.”
“He wasn’t your father.”
“No.”
Luka looked at me.
“But he showed me what one could look like.”
Something inside me shifted.
Not romance.
Not yet.
Trust.
The door opened.
Rebecca stood there holding a courier envelope.
“We have a problem.”
Inside was a court summons.
Malcolm was challenging my claim to the Bennett Trust.
His argument was simple.
He claimed Thomas Bennett was not my biological father.
If true, I was not the legitimate Bennett heir.
The trust would revert to corporate control.
Malcolm would gain everything.
I laughed through exhausted tears.
“Another DNA test.”
Rebecca nodded.
“They want your father exhumed.”
Then Luka stood.
“No.”
Rebecca looked at him.
“Why?”
May you like
Luka’s face had gone pale.
Because he already knew what the test would show.
