Chapter 7 - THE FIRST DNA ENVELOPE
I stared at the envelope.
Daniel stared at Vanessa.
“What did you do?”
“What you were too weak to do.”
She looked at me.
“Open it.”
I did not move.
My daughter began crying upstairs.
Every instinct in my body pulled me toward her.
Luka bent down and picked up the envelope.
He examined the seal.
“This is fake.”
Vanessa’s smile disappeared.
Daniel looked at her.
“What?”
Luka held it toward the light.
“No laboratory accession number.”
Vanessa stepped backward.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I know exactly what a fabricated DNA report looks like.”
He tore the envelope open.
Inside was a single page.
PATERNITY PROBABILITY: 0.00%.
I looked at Daniel.
He appeared genuinely shocked.
That scared me.
“Did you order this test?”
“No.”
Vanessa answered for him.
“Vale did.”
Luka folded the page.
“Using what sample?”
She did not respond.
Luka’s eyes became dangerous.
“What sample, Vanessa?”
She finally whispered.
“The infant heel stick.”
My stomach turned.
They had taken blood from my baby minutes after birth.
Not only for ordinary newborn screening.
For Meridian.
Daniel looked sick.
“You told me they stopped after Elena got pregnant.”
Vanessa scoffed.
“You actually believed that?”
That was when I understood something.
Daniel had betrayed me.
But he was not the person in control.
He had been used too.
It did not excuse him.
It only made the conspiracy larger.
Luka handed the false report to Marcus.
“Run the lab stamp.”
Marcus disappeared inside.
Vanessa turned toward Daniel.
“We should go.”
Daniel ignored her.
“Elena.”
I looked at him.
“I swear I thought the monitoring ended.”
“You knew they were monitoring me at all.”
He had no answer.
I closed the door.
My knees nearly gave out.
Luka caught my arm.
I pulled away.
“Don’t.”
He released me immediately.
Upstairs, I held my daughter until her crying stopped.
I named her that night.
Sofia Michael Hart Reed.
Michael for the father I thought I had lost.
Hart because I refused to let Meridian erase where I came from.
Luka stood at the doorway.
“You kept Reed.”
“For now.”
He nodded.
Marcus appeared behind him holding a tablet.
“I found the lab.”
Luka read the screen.
His face changed.
“What?”
Marcus looked at me.
“The sample on Vanessa’s report was not your daughter’s.”
I froze.
“Then whose was it?”
Marcus turned the screen around.
A second infant identification number appeared.
Female.
Born twenty-five years earlier.
The mother’s name was blank.
The infant’s name was mine.
ELENA HART.
The DNA test was not about Sofia.
It was testing Daniel against me.
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And according to the report, Daniel had never been the mystery they were trying to solve.
Someone had been searching for my biological father.
