Chapter 8 - The Blood Test

Adrian did not speak until they were outside the clinic.

“What did she mean, which Castellano?”

Mia looked at him in disbelief. “You think I slept with someone else in your family?”

“No.”

“You asked it with your face.”

“I’m asking what Salvatore believed.”

Matteo stepped between them before the argument could ignite.

“Evelyn said Elena took blood. That implies someone doubted paternity. We need the test.”

Mia folded her arms. “Or someone needed proof for another reason.”

Adrian stared at the road.

“My father had a will clause.”

“What clause?”

“If I had a biological child before age thirty-five, control of the family holding company would transfer permanently to my branch. If I died without one, Salvatore’s branch gained voting control.”

Mia felt cold.

“You were thirty-two when I got pregnant.”

“Yes.”

“So our children were not just leverage.”

“They were succession.”

She looked away, furious at a dead man’s paperwork for turning babies into percentages.

“Did Salvatore know about the clause?”

“He helped draft the trust.”

Matteo swore.

Adrian’s voice dropped. “If he proved Ronan was mine, he knew his own financial future was threatened.”

“Then why not expose the child?” Mia asked. “The clause would help you.”

“Unless he intended to control the child if something happened to me.”

Mia turned on him.

“Something happened to you?”

Adrian met her eyes.

“My brakes failed six months after you disappeared.”

“You never told me.”

“You were gone.”

“Stop using that as an answer.”

“It’s not an excuse. It’s chronology.”

Back at the lake house, Matteo found an old laboratory billing entry tied to Elena Vale.

Private DNA kinship panel.

No names.

Cash payment.

Three years earlier.

The lab had since closed, but its founder lived in Connecticut.

They reached him by evening.

Dr. Samuel Keene remembered the unusual request.

“A woman brought infant blood spots and two adult samples,” he said by video call. “She wanted a direct paternity comparison and a second-degree relation comparison.”

Adrian leaned toward the screen.

“Results?”

“I can’t disclose without records.”

Mia held up her identification and explained that one infant sample had been taken from her child without consent.

Keene’s expression changed.

“That was not what I was told.”

“What were you told?”

“Emergency inheritance dispute.”

Matteo asked, “Do you still have archives?”

“Paper storage. Possibly.”

“Find them.” Adrian’s tone sharpened.

Mia touched his arm.

He stopped.

“Please,” Mia said to Keene. “Find them.”

After the call, Adrian looked at her hand on his sleeve.

She removed it.

“Don’t make that meaningful.”

“I wasn’t.”

“You were.”

He looked away, almost embarrassed.

That evening, Wren refused dinner unless Adrian sat beside her.

Mia nearly objected, then saw Wren’s trembling lower lip.

Adrian sat.

Wren pushed peas around her plate.

“You eat green?”

“Sometimes.”

“Eat one.”

Adrian, feared by men who managed ports and unions, ate one pea under the supervision of a two-year-old.

Ronan clapped.

Mia covered her mouth so they would not see her laugh.

Later, after the twins slept, she found Adrian outside their bedroom door.

“What are you doing?”

“Nothing.”

“You’ve been standing here for eight minutes.”

He looked at the closed door.

“I missed everything.”

Mia’s anger softened against her will.

“The first steps were Wren. Ronan talked first.”

Adrian looked at her.

“Why are you telling me?”

“I don’t know.”

“What was the first word?”

“Ronan said ‘light.’ Wren said ‘mine.’”

A faint smile touched him.

“Of course she did.”

Mia almost smiled back.

Then Matteo hurried up the stairs.

“Keene found the archive.”

Adrian’s posture changed.

“And?”

“The paternity result is a match.”

Mia closed her eyes.

She had expected it, yet hearing it made something final.

Matteo continued.

“The second-degree comparison is the problem.”

“What problem?” Adrian asked.

“The sample labeled S.C. is not consistent with being your uncle.”

Adrian stared.

Matteo swallowed.

“It’s consistent with being your biological father.”

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\nLater, Mia called Dot from the guest room.\n\n“Tell me something normal,” she said.\n\nDot did not ask why. “Your downstairs sink still leaks. The mailman keeps putting number fourteen’s coupons in your box. And Ronan’s left rain boot is under my sofa.”\n\nMia laughed weakly. “Thank you.”\n\n“You all right?”\n\n“No.”\n\n“Good. Means you’re not lying to me.”\n\nMia looked through the window at Adrian walking the perimeter with Matteo.\n\n“He’s trying.”\n\n“Trying what?”\n\n“To be someone I don’t have to run from.”\n\nDot was quiet. “Trying is not the same as earning.”\n\n“I know.”\n\n“But it is how earning starts.”\n\nMia ended the call with that sentence lodged uncomfortably in her chest.\n

Adrian slept in the chair outside the twins’ room that night. Mia discovered him at dawn, neck bent at an impossible angle, phone still dark in his hand. For once, vigilance had lost to exhaustion. She left a blanket over him and walked away before he woke.