Chapter 4 - THE TEST
The DNA lab occupied the fourth floor of a medical building near Northwestern Memorial Hospital.
Serena chose it because none of Moretti Global's subsidiaries had ever done business with it.
Luca arrived nine minutes early.
I arrived twelve minutes early.
Neither of us mentioned that our old marriage had worked the same way.
Leo carried a red dinosaur backpack.
Mila carried her stuffed rabbit.
They had treated the morning like a field trip until they saw Luca waiting in the lobby.
Mila smiled first.
“You came.”
Luca's face softened.
“I said I would.”
Leo looked at him more cautiously.
“You have a big car.”
Luca glanced through the window at the black sedan downstairs.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“I have a lot of meetings.”
“That doesn't make sense.”
I covered a smile.
Luca looked at me.
For one brief second, something familiar passed between us.
Then Serena stepped from the elevator and killed the moment.
She was forty-two, compact, composed, and utterly unimpressed by Luca's net worth.
“Mr. Moretti.”
“Ms. Park.”
“Your counsel?”
“Not here.”
Serena raised an eyebrow.
“I asked them not to attend.”
“That is either considerate or strategic.”
“Can it be both?”
“Usually.”
The technician took cheek swabs from all three of them.
The twins giggled when the swabs tickled.
Luca did not.
He watched every movement as if someone might steal the result from the air.
The lab director explained that expedited results could be ready within twenty-four hours.
The twins were taken to a small waiting room while the adults finished paperwork.
Through the glass, I watched Luca sit beside them with his knees almost touching a child-sized table.
Mila handed him a blue marker.
He accepted it with the seriousness of a treaty.
“What are we drawing?”
“A house.”
“Whose house?”
“Ours.”
Luca stopped moving.
Mila did not notice.
She drew a square, three windows, and a chimney that leaned sideways.
Then she drew three stick figures.
“Where's Mom?” Luca asked.
“She is getting papers.”
“Where's Leo?”
“He is the one with giant hair.”
Leo objected from across the room.
“My hair is normal.”
“It is not.”
Luca smiled despite himself.
Then Mila added a fourth figure near the edge of the page.
“That one is you if the test says yes.”
The smile disappeared.
I looked away before he could see me watching.
For Luca, the test was confirmation of what his eyes already knew.
For the twins, it was something stranger.
It was permission to name a relationship that had arrived without warning.
Serena joined me near the door.
“You can still slow this down.”
“I know.”
“You do not have to let biology dictate emotional speed.”
“I know.”
I watched Luca hand the marker back to Mila.
“He lost six years.”
“That is sad.”
Her voice remained firm.
“It does not mean the children owe him six years in six days.”
That sentence stayed with me.
I needed Luca to understand it too.
Luca asked whether four hours was possible.
Serena said no before the director could answer.
“You have waited six years.”
Luca's face tightened.
“I did not know I was waiting.”
The words silenced us all.
Afterward, Mila reminded everyone about pancakes.
I had hoped she had forgotten.
She had not.
“Saturday,” she told Luca.
He looked at me.
“We'll discuss it.”
Mila sighed dramatically.
“Adults discuss too much.”
Leo nodded.
“For real.”
Luca almost smiled.
I hated how natural it looked.
Outside the lab, reporters were waiting despite the sealed confidentiality order.
That was the first sign the leak was still active.
The second was worse.
One reporter shouted a question that made me stop walking.
“Ms. Carter, did you demand ten million dollars to keep Mr. Moretti's children hidden?”
Luca turned so sharply his security detail moved with him.
I felt Serena's hand at my elbow.
“Keep moving.”
Another reporter shouted.
“Mr. Moretti, did your ex-wife blackmail you?”
“That is false,” Luca said.
Every camera snapped toward him.
Serena cursed under her breath.
Luca kept walking.
“I have never paid Nia Carter to remain silent about anything.”
“Luca,” I hissed.
He opened the rear door of my SUV and waited while I buckled the twins inside.
The cameras went wild.
By noon, photographs of Luca protecting us from the press were everywhere.
Some headlines called it a secret family reunion.
Others called me a gold digger who had hidden billionaire heirs.
One network displayed an old photograph from our wedding beside a newer picture of Evelyn.
The chyron read WIFE VERSUS EX-WIFE: WHO KNEW ABOUT THE TWINS?
I turned the television off.
Serena did not let me rest.
At one, she arrived with two laptops and a forensic consultant named Elliot Crane.
Elliot specialized in digital evidence.
He wore an inexpensive sweater, spoke softly, and looked more like a high school science teacher than someone who testified in federal court.
He examined the fake email printout Victor had given me.
“Paper is useless without headers.”
“I know.”
“Do you still have access to the old account?”
“No.”
“The provider?”
“Private domain managed through Moretti systems at the time.”
He glanced at Serena.
“That complicates it.”
“Everything about Luca complicates things,” I said.
Elliot did not smile.
“Who administered the domain?”
“Moretti IT.”
“Who had credentials?”
“I don't know.”
Serena slid over a list.
“We subpoenaed archived access logs this morning.”
I stared at her.
“You work fast.”
“I bill fast too.”
For the first time all day, I laughed.
Then my phone buzzed.
Luca.
I almost ignored it.
Serena nodded toward the phone.
“Answer.”
I put it on speaker.
“Nia.”
“What?”
“I need to see you.”
“You saw me three hours ago.”
“Without the children.”
Serena's expression sharpened.
“Why?”
“I found something.”
I looked at Serena.
“What?”
“Not on the phone.”
I nearly threw the device.
“Why does every man in Chicago say that to me?”
Luca paused.
“Victor called you.”
It was not a question.
My silence answered.
“I want to know what he told you.”
“And I want to know what you found.”
“Come to the penthouse.”
“No.”
“Nia.”
“I am never meeting you there again.”
The penthouse kitchen was where he ended our marriage.
He understood immediately.
“Fine.”
He named a conference room at Serena's firm instead.
Thirty minutes later, Luca arrived carrying an archival storage box himself.
No assistant.
No security inside.
He set the box on the table.
“I had my general counsel pull every physical file related to our divorce and the Shaw Capital financing.”
Serena looked impressed despite herself.
“Before receiving formal discovery requests?”
“I am not hiding anything.”
“Everyone says that before discovery.”
Luca ignored the comment.
He opened the box.
Inside were printed calendars, board packets, legal notes, and old correspondence.
Then he pulled out a thin blue folder.
My name was written across the tab.
I recognized Victor's handwriting.
Luca opened it.
The fake email was inside.
But it was not the only document.
Beneath it sat a printed memorandum dated two days after my office visit.
The subject line read CARTER CONTACT PROTOCOL.
My skin went cold.
Luca read it aloud.
“All communications from Ms. Carter should be routed through executive administration until further notice.”
His jaw clenched.
“Signed Victor Kane.”
Serena took the page.
“Did you authorize this?”
“No.”
“Did you know it existed?”
“No.”
I stared at Luca.
He stared back.
For six years I had pictured him rejecting my letter.
I had imagined him opening the envelope, seeing the ultrasound, deciding his new life mattered more.
Now a different horror was taking shape.
He may never have had the chance to reject us at all.
Luca reached deeper into the box.
“There is something else.”
He placed a corporate travel record on the table.
Victor Kane had flown to New York four days after my visit.
The hotel listed matched the photograph Victor had shown me with Daniel Shaw.
Elliot leaned forward.
“That corroborates the photo.”
Luca looked at me.
“What photo?”
I hesitated.
Serena gave me a slight nod.
So I told him everything Victor had said.
The destroyed letter.
The fake email.
Daniel Shaw's concern about Luca's personal life.
The memo positioning Evelyn near him.
Luca listened without interrupting.
The quieter he became, the more dangerous the room felt.
When I finished, he asked one question.
“Did Victor say Evelyn knew?”
“No.”
Luca looked relieved for less than a second.
Then his phone rang.
He looked at the screen.
His face changed.
“It's the lab.”
The room became silent.
He answered.
“Yes.”
We watched him listen.
His eyes closed.
“Send the report to all counsel.”
He ended the call.
I already knew.
So did he.
Serena's email chimed seconds later.
She opened the attached report.
Probability of paternity: greater than 99.999 percent.
Leo and Mila were Luca Moretti's biological children.
Luca sat down slowly.
For a long moment, no one spoke.
Then he looked at me.
“They're mine.”
“Yes.”
His voice was barely audible.
“I have a son.”
“Yes.”
“And a daughter.”
“Yes.”
His eyes filled again.
I looked away.
Then Serena's second laptop chimed.
Elliot leaned over it.
His expression changed.
“What?” Serena asked.
“The access logs just came in.”
He scrolled quickly.
Then he stopped.
The room went still.
“The fake email wasn't sent from Nia's account.”
Luca stood.
“Then where?”
Elliot turned the screen toward us.
“It was injected directly into the archive server using an administrator credential.”
“Whose credential?” I asked.
Elliot read the name.
Not Victor Kane.
May you like
Not Daniel Shaw.
EVELYN SHAW.
