Chapter 17 - The Moretti Bloodline
Neither Luka nor I spoke for several minutes.
Finally he laughed once.
Not because anything was funny.
Because sometimes shock had nowhere else to go.
“My father.”
I stared at him.
“You knew he donated?”
“No.”
“Did your mother?”
“I don’t know.”
Rebecca immediately ordered confirmation testing.
Until then, the donor registry was evidence, not certainty.
But Luka and I both knew what it might mean.
He had signed Isla’s birth certificate believing he was protecting a stranger’s child.
In reality, he might have been protecting his niece.
The thought broke something open inside me.
Not fear.
Belonging.
A kind I had not expected.
Luka looked at Isla differently after that.
He still barely touched her.
He was terrified of doing something wrong.
But when she wrapped her tiny fingers around one of his tattooed fingers, his entire face changed.
“She’s strong.”
“She weighs seven pounds.”
“Still strong.”
The DNA results arrived the next morning.
Probability of half-sibling relationship:
99.94%.
Luka sat down.
I stared at the page.
My life had gained a brother in less than twenty-four hours.
A brother who had unknowingly spent years honoring a promise made by the man who raised me.
Then another piece fell into place.
Malcolm had known Lorenzo Moretti.
Lorenzo had been one of the earliest M-17 donors.
He later discovered his samples had been used without authorization.
He threatened to expose Crane.
Months later, he disappeared.
Luka had been seven.
“You thought your father ran away.”
“Yes.”
“What if he didn’t?”
Luka’s face hardened.
Rebecca opened one of Thomas’s encrypted drives.
A video appeared.
My father sat alone behind his desk.
He looked exhausted.
“Elena, if you ever see this, then I failed to finish what I started.”
My chest tightened.
He explained everything.
M-17 had forged adoptions.
Manipulated paternity cases.
Stolen donor samples.
And concealed at least eleven children from their biological families.
Then my father said the name.
Lorenzo Moretti.
“He tried to expose them.”
Luka stopped breathing.
My father continued.
“Malcolm Hayes ordered his removal.”
Luka’s fists tightened.
“Removal?”
The video answered.
“Lorenzo was killed.”
Luka stood so suddenly his chair fell backward.
I reached for him.
He stepped away.
For the first time since I met him, the tattooed stranger looked like a frightened seven-year-old boy.
Then my father delivered one final revelation.
“The proof is in the third DNA envelope.”
We all looked toward the sealed envelope.
Luka whispered.
“Open it.”
I shook my head.
“Not yet.”
Because the note was clear.
DO NOT OPEN UNTIL M-17 IS EXPOSED.
May you like
We needed the world to know first.
Then we would discover whose DNA had been hidden inside for twenty-five years.
