Chapter 10 - The Secret in the Blood
Ten minutes later, in an interrogation holding room behind the courtroom, Julian’s cuffs were finally unlocked.
The moment the steel bands fell away, he pulled me against him with a ferocity that stole whatever breath I had left. His arms locked around my waist and the swell of my belly, his face buried into my neck. He was trembling. This giant, stoic man who had built a corporate empire from nothing was shaking like a child in the dark.
"I thought I lost you," he whispered, his voice cracking against my skin. "When they said Gloucester... when they said the fire..."
"I'm here," I choked out, running my fingers through his hair. "Leo is here. We’re both here."
Julian pulled back, his large hands framing my face, wiping away the smudges of soot from my cheek. His eyes dropped to my stomach, then to the bruise purpling on my jaw.
"I will tear down everything that carries the Vance name," he vowed, his voice deadly and quiet. "Every brick. Every dollar. She will rot in a cell for this."
The door opened, and Croft walked in, shutting it firmly behind him. His face was grim.
"Megan’s processing right now," Croft said. "She’s refusing to speak without Evelyn's private attorneys. But that’s not our immediate problem."
"What is?" Julian asked, stepping protectively in front of me.
Croft pulled a sealed envelope from his inside pocket. The header was from the Department of Forensic Pathology in Boston.
"When we pulled Arthur's journals from the harbor locker," Croft said, "there was a locked safety deposit key taped to the back cover. It led to a box at Sovereign Bank. Inside was a refrigerated biological sample Arthur had preserved five years ago, along with a lab requisition."
"What kind of sample?" Julian asked.
"Arthur’s hair and blood. He had a secret DNA paternity test run on both you and Megan before he died."
Croft handed the paper to Julian.
I watched Julian’s eyes scan the lines. His brow furrowed. Then, his face went completely pale, his hands going slack.
"This is impossible," Julian murmured.
"What does it say?" I asked, grabbing his arm.
Julian looked at me, his world spinning on its axis for the second time in twenty-four hours.
"Megan isn't Arthur's child," Julian said, his voice a ghost. "We already knew that from the journal. But this test... it says Megan is Evelyn's child, fathered by Richard Sterling—Arthur's old hedge-fund partner who disappeared in 2008."
"And you?" I asked.
Julian turned the page toward me.
The genetic match between Julian Vance and Evelyn Vance was 0.00%.
Julian wasn't Evelyn's son.
"She didn't adopt you, Julian," Croft said quietly. "Arthur had an affair thirty-two years ago with an architectural student. When that woman died in childbirth, Arthur brought you home and forced Evelyn to raise you as her own to save face in Boston high society."
The puzzle pieces snapped together with a horrifying, metallic click.
"That’s why she hates you," I whispered, the realization washing over me like ice water. "That’s why she never hugged you. Why she let Megan bleed you dry. You're the living, breathing proof of Arthur's betrayal."
"And your biological mother," Croft added, looking directly at me, "was named Sarah Linwood."
I stopped breathing.
Sarah Linwood was my mother's older sister. The aunt who had supposedly died in an overseas car accident before I was born.
Julian and I weren't just husband and wife fighting his abusive family.
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Julian was holding the claim to an inheritance that Evelyn had murdered Arthur to protect—and my own family had been buried under the foundation of that lie for thirty years.
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