Chapter 6 - A Marriage Built on Missing Pages
The DNA tests took forty-eight hours.
Those forty-eight hours nearly destroyed everyone.
Lucian submitted his sample.
So did Pavel's archived medical record obtained through a warrant.
Maeve supplied hers.
Nikolai found an old sample belonging to Viktor.
Saoirse waited.
Meanwhile, Cesily uncovered something else.
The Brennan trust had not been stolen only through forged corporate documents.
Someone had used Saoirse's marriage.
A clause activated when a Brennan heir legally joined the Drevik family.
Saoirse stared at the contract.
“Nikolai?”
He looked genuinely stunned.
“You didn't know?”
“No.”
She believed that too.
His father had engineered circumstances long after death.
Viktor's will had encouraged Nikolai to acquire Brennan Consulting.
That was how Nikolai and Saoirse met.
Their romance had felt accidental.
Perhaps the meeting hadn't been.
The love had been.
Saoirse knew that.
But knowing didn't make the manipulation less sickening.
“I thought I chose you,” she whispered.
“You did.”
“Your father put me in your path.”
“Yes.”
“And you never knew.”
“No.”
She looked at him.
“Do you understand why I don't know what parts of my life are real anymore?”
Nikolai's voice broke slightly.
“Yes.”
The DNA results arrived that evening.
Pavel Oric was genetically related to Lucian Vale.
Half-brother.
But Maeve's warning about switched babies had been misunderstood.
Pavel was Gabriel.
Lucian remained Lucian.
The infant declared dead decades earlier had been stolen and raised as an Oric.
Why?
Inheritance.
The Vale family's original stake in Terminal Seven passed equally to both sons.
By erasing Gabriel, conspirators gained access to his shares through fraudulent trusts.
Pavel's entire identity had been constructed around theft.
Lucian read the report silently.
“What will you do?” Saoirse asked.
“Tell him.”
Nikolai scoffed.
“He'll shoot you before page two.”
“Then I'll stay behind something thick.”
Saoirse almost laughed.
It surprised everyone.
Even her.
The sound felt foreign.
But good.
Then Tess entered.
Her face was white.
“Pavel contacted me.”
Everyone stood.
“He wants to meet.”
“No,” Nikolai said.
Tess glared.
Saoirse raised an eyebrow at him.
Nikolai sighed.
“Sorry.”
Tess looked at Saoirse.
“I want to go.”
“Why?”
“Because he's the father of my child.”
“And he threatened you.”
“Yes.”
“Do you still love him?”
Tess looked down.
“That isn't the same as trusting him.”
Saoirse understood that better than anyone.
They arranged a controlled meeting.
Pavel chose an old church.
Lucian stayed hidden.
Tess wore a wire.
Saoirse watched remotely beside Maeve.
Pavel entered alone.
He looked exhausted.
Not monstrous.
That was somehow more frightening.
Tess showed him the DNA report.
He laughed.
Then stopped.
Then read it again.
“No.”
“Pavel—”
“No.”
Lucian stepped from behind the partition.
Pavel drew a gun.
Every officer outside tensed.
Lucian didn't.
“My father told me Gabriel died,” Lucian said.
“Stay away from me.”
“Our father.”
Pavel's hand trembled.
“You think paper makes us brothers?”
“No.”
Lucian took another step.
“It makes us two men who were lied to by the same people.”
Pavel's eyes filled with hatred.
Then grief.
He lowered the weapon.
For one second, peace seemed possible.
A shot exploded.
Pavel fell.
Chaos erupted.
The bullet had come through stained glass.
Not from Pavel.
Not Lucian.
Not police.
Someone outside wanted Pavel dead before he could talk.
He survived.
Barely.
The shooter escaped.
But investigators recovered a casing.
Ballistics linked it to a weapon registered decades earlier.
To Dr. Kessler.
Saoirse returned to the secure apartment that night.
Nikolai accompanied her only to the elevator.
“You can go,” she said.
“I know.”
He remained.
She looked at him.
“Why are you still here?”
“Because I wanted to ask whether you needed anything.”
A simple question.
She almost cried.
“Tea.”
“I can make tea.”
“You make terrible tea.”
“Yes.”
She let him inside.
It wasn't forgiveness.
It wasn't reconciliation.
It was tea.
Sometimes enormous things began with very small permissions.
Nikolai boiled the water.
Saoirse watched him.
Then her phone vibrated.
A security alert.
Someone had entered the Vancouver mansion.
The nursery.
Saoirse opened the camera feed.
A man stood beside the crib Nikolai had assembled three weeks earlier.
Gray hair.
Thin shoulders.
He looked directly into the hidden camera.
Dr. Kessler.
He raised a folder.
Then spoke clearly enough for the microphone to capture every word.
“You've been asking about the wrong baby.”
He opened the folder.
The first page showed Saoirse's name.
The second showed her current pregnancy.
The third contained a DNA report.
Nikolai leaned closer.
Saoirse's blood turned cold.
May you like
Because under FATHER, the report did not say Nikolai Drevik.
It said...
