Chapter 5
Gavin stopped defending Sybil after that.
He also stopped defending himself.
That was smarter.
Not enough.
But smarter.
Rachel contacted the laboratory formally.
Their compliance department confirmed the report was not authentic.
The layout resembled an older version of their template.
The signatures were not current.
The case number had been copied from unrelated paperwork.
Nobody at the laboratory had authorized an at-home collection for Gavin.
Brenna sat across from her husband.
“Your mother showed you a forged paternity test.”
“Yes.”
“You believed it.”
“Yes.”
“You hid it from me.”
“Yes.”
“You met Owen.”
“Yes.”
“How many times?”
“Twice.”
“Did you tell him you were his father?”
“No.”
“Did your mother?”
Gavin’s face changed.
Brenna caught it immediately.
“Gavin.”
“She told him he could call me Dad if he wanted.”
Brenna stood.
He stood too.
“Don’t.”
Her voice stopped him.
“I’m not hitting you again. Sit down.”
He did.
Brenna walked toward the window.
She had been so focused on Tobin that she had not fully considered the other child.
Owen had lost Daniel.
Then a wealthy older woman appeared claiming Daniel might not have been his biological father.
She brought him to meet Gavin.
She suggested Gavin was another dad.
Now the test was fake.
Owen was not evidence.
He was another child Sybil had pulled into an adult plan.
“Does Marissa know?”
“Rachel called her lawyer.”
Brenna turned.
“What happens now?”
“Independent testing.”
Gavin looked exhausted.
“She agreed.”
“Good.”
Then he said something Brenna did not expect.
“I don’t want Owen disappearing from our concern even if he isn’t mine.”
Brenna studied him.
“Why?”
“Because my mother did this to him too.”
For the first time since the hallway, Gavin sounded like the man she had married rather than the son Sybil had trained.
It did not repair anything.
But Brenna filed the sentence away.
Later that afternoon Rachel discovered another fact.
Sybil had retained a family-law attorney before the supposed paternity result existed.
The first consultation occurred twelve days before the home test.
The subject:
Integration of newly identified paternal child into established household.
Brenna read the date twice.
“How could she be planning integration before she supposedly knew the result?”
Rachel closed the file.
“She either had extraordinary confidence.”
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“Or?”
“Or the result was never the point.”
