Chapter 7
Laura did not open the report alone.
She called Adrian.
He arrived twenty minutes later.
Megan remained seated at the far end of the conference table.
Neither looked at the other.
Laura placed the envelope between them.
Adrian’s face changed.
Barely.
Enough.
“You already know what it says.”
His eyes met hers.
Silence.
Laura’s fingers rested beside the envelope.
“Last chance.”
Adrian inhaled slowly.
“The test said I was the father.”
Megan closed her eyes.
Laura did not open the envelope.
She no longer needed it to force truth from him.
But she opened it anyway.
Probability of paternity:
99.99%.
Emma was Adrian’s biological daughter.
The room held its breath.
Megan did not cry.
Her hands simply slid from the table into her lap.
Adrian spoke first.
“It changes nothing.”
Megan’s eyes opened.
That sentence reached her before anyone else.
“What?”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“She is Laura’s daughter.”
Laura looked at him.
“Legally.”
“Yes.”
“And biologically yours.”
He said nothing.
Megan stood.
Her voice remained soft.
“You knew every time I watched her at Christmas.”
Adrian’s breathing shifted.
“You knew every time I said she looked like Claire.”
Silence.
“You watched me hate a child for having her face.”
“Megan—”
“You could have stopped me.”
Adrian finally lost patience.
“And told you what?”
His voice rose.
“That while we were separated I slept with your sister?”
“You already told me tonight.”
“That she had my child?”
“Yes.”
“That I let Laura raise her?”
Megan’s eyes filled.
“Yes.”
Adrian struck the table with his palm.
“I would have lost everything.”
Silence.
There.
His reason.
Marriage.
Capo status.
Family standing.
Access.
Respect.
He chose all of it.
Megan stared at him.
“You chose everything except her.”
Adrian looked toward the door.
Laura’s expression changed.
He still could not look toward the room where Emma was playing.
Laura noticed.
“So you wanted her adopted out of state.”
“Yes.”
His voice came lower now.
“Because I knew this would happen.”
Laura leaned back.
“No.”
He looked at her.
“You knew the truth would happen.”
That landed.
Then Laura asked the question Megan had not.
“Why did Claire leave the father blank on the birth certificate?”
Adrian’s eyes hardened.
“She wanted me to acknowledge Emma privately first.”
“And did you?”
“No.”
Laura looked toward Megan.
The cruelty at the banquet had started with the claim that adoption made Emma less real.
Yet the man defending that cruelty was the biological father who had refused to claim her.
Then Laura’s attorney placed another document on the table.
Claire’s hospital intake notes.
Emergency contact:
Megan.
Secondary contact:
Adrian.
One handwritten notation:
Patient requests father not be allowed to remove child without her written permission.
Laura stared at Adrian.
Megan did too.
“What did you do?”
Adrian’s face tightened.
May you like
He had apparently tried to take Emma from the hospital before Claire’s death.
The man who claimed he wanted the child far away had once tried to take her himself.
