Chapter 19 - The Man on His Knees
Derek refused to tell me at first.
Then Luka entered the room carrying the envelope.
Derek went white.
“No.”
Luka placed it on the table.
“M-17 is public.”
“Elena, don’t.”
I stared at my husband.
“My father said the truth would destroy your family.”
“It will.”
“What is inside?”
Derek looked at Luka.
Then at me.
“My father’s DNA.”
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“And Camille’s baby.”
The room became silent.
I felt my heartbeat in my throat.
“No.”
Derek’s eyes closed.
“My father is the biological father of Camille’s baby.”
I stared at him.
“Camille was sleeping with Malcolm?”
“She says she wasn’t.”
“Then how?”
“M-17.”
My stomach turned.
Derek explained.
Malcolm had secretly used his own stored genetic sample to manipulate Camille’s fertility treatment.
Camille had undergone a procedure after being told she had hormonal complications.
She believed Derek’s sample was being used.
It was not.
Malcolm wanted an heir he could genetically control.
A baby biologically connected to the Hayes line but legally presented as Derek’s.
Another inheritance weapon.
Another M-17 child.
I felt sick.
Derek looked at me.
“My father did to Camille exactly what Crane did to your mother.”
Without consent.
Without truth.
Without choice.
Now I understood why Derek was terrified.
The final envelope was not simply scandal.
It was evidence.
A genetic link proving Malcolm had continued M-17 in the present day.
Luka placed the envelope before me.
Derek stood.
Then something strange happened.
He walked around the table.
And dropped to his knees.
The man who had abandoned me in a hospital.
The man who had let his mistress watch me cry.
The man who had called me unstable.
The man who had tried to take my daughter.
Now knelt on the floor in front of me.
“Elena.”
His voice broke.
“Please.”
I looked at him.
“You begged me to trust you for four years.”
“I know.”
“You asked me to build a family with you.”
“I know.”
“You walked away from that family because of one report.”
Tears rolled down his face.
“I know.”
“You never gave me the chance you’re asking me to give you now.”
He lowered his head.
“If you open that envelope, my father goes to prison forever.”
“He should.”
“My mother will lose everything.”
“That is not my responsibility.”
“The company collapses.”
“Neither is that.”
He looked up.
“What about me?”
I felt something inside me finally become still.
“You lost me when you walked down that hospital corridor.”
His face crumpled.
I reached for the envelope.
Derek whispered.
“Please.”
I opened it.
The DNA report confirmed everything.
Malcolm Hayes was the biological father of Camille’s unborn child.
But there was another page.
A second comparison.
Lorenzo Moretti.
Malcolm Hayes.
My father had tested blood recovered from the night Lorenzo disappeared.
The probability that the blood belonged to Lorenzo was overwhelming.
The sample had been found inside Malcolm’s private vehicle.
Luka stopped breathing.
The third envelope proved more than reproductive fraud.
It connected Malcolm to the murder of Luka’s father.
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And suddenly Derek’s family was no longer facing scandal.
They were facing destruction.
