Chapter 5 - THE PHOTOGRAPH
My father had been dead for thirteen years.
His name was Thomas Reed.
He had been a quiet man with kind eyes, strong hands, and a habit of checking every door twice before going to bed.
When I was twelve, he died in what police called a highway accident.
A truck crossed the center line.
His car went over a guardrail.
End of story.
At least that was what my mother told me.
Luka didn't seem to believe it.
Neither did the man who arrived the next morning carrying the photograph.
His name was Noah Grant.
He was Luka's attorney and private investigator.
He placed the picture on my hospital tray.
My father's face stared back at me.
He was younger than I remembered.
Standing beside him was another man.
I looked at Luka.
It was impossible to miss the resemblance.
"Your father?"
Luka nodded.
"Antonio Moretti."
The photograph had been taken outside St. Catherine seventeen years earlier.
My father's arm was around Antonio's shoulder.
Both men were smiling.
On the back, in my father's handwriting, were four words.
M-17.
IF WE FAIL.
I looked up.
"What does that mean?"
Luka sat across from me.
"My father worked in medical data security."
"Your father worked in corporate compliance."
"Together, they investigated something happening inside this hospital network."
My heart began pounding.
"What?"
"We don't know all of it."
Noah opened a folder.
"Patients were being given false fertility records."
"Donor identities were being changed."
"Paternity results were being altered."
"And high-value families were paying to make inconvenient genetic facts disappear."
I thought of Mason.
Of the Bennett trust.
Of Selena.
"You think my father discovered it."
"We know he did."
Luka leaned forward.
"Because my father disappeared six months after yours died."
I stared at him.
"Disappeared?"
"His car was found near Lake Erie."
"No body."
"No confirmed death."
"Nothing."
I felt cold.
"And you think the same people were involved."
"I think our fathers were trying to expose M-17."
I looked down at my newborn.
Everything had changed in less than twenty-four hours.
My marriage.
My daughter's identity.
My father's death.
My entire understanding of my life.
"Why didn't you tell me this yesterday?"
Luka's eyes softened.
"You had just given birth."
"You had just watched your husband walk away."
"And I didn't know whether I was actually your daughter's biological father."
I swallowed.
"Now you do."
"Preliminarily."
He paused.
"The legal test still matters."
I studied him.
"How do you feel about that?"
His gaze went to the bassinet.
For the first time since I met him, the hard man covered in tattoos looked completely unprepared.
"Terrified."
I hadn't expected that.
He exhaled.
"My sample was stored before surgery."
"I was twenty-three."
"I never consented to it being used."
"I never chose any of this."
Then he looked directly at me.
"Neither did you."
That mattered.
More than he knew.
He wasn't claiming me.
He wasn't claiming my daughter.
He was acknowledging that both of us had been violated by the same secret.
Noah's phone vibrated.
He read a message.
His expression changed.
"What?"
Luka asked.
Noah turned the screen toward us.
A court petition had been filed thirty-seven minutes earlier.
MASON BENNETT.
EMERGENCY PETITION FOR TEMPORARY CUSTODY.
I almost laughed from disbelief.
"He isn't even her biological father."
Noah's expression remained grim.
"That isn't what his petition says."
He handed me the phone.
Mason was alleging that Luka had manipulated the DNA results.
He described Luka as a violent criminal associate.
And me as a postpartum mother suffering from impaired judgment.
But that wasn't the worst part.
Attached to the petition was a psychiatric evaluation.
My name was on it.
May you like
The date was six months earlier.
And I had never seen the doctor who supposedly signed it.
