Chapter 4 - The DNA Truth and the Rising Storm
The private laboratory results arrived at precisely 4:15 AM.
Noelle had spent the night in the nursery, refusing to leave the children’s side. She had pulled a plush armchair between the three cribs, holding Clara against her shoulder while her left hand rested over Leo and Mateo's blanket. For the first time in fourteen months, all three babies slept peacefully for six straight hours without waking up once.
Downstairs in the master study, the fire crackled quietly in the stone hearth.
Damian stood by the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a glass of aged scotch he hadn't touched. The door opened, and Dr. Evans walked in, holding a sealed white envelope bearing the watermark of a private genetic institute in Manhattan.
Dr. Evans looked tired, his face lined with grave disbelief.
"Damian," Evans said softly. "I ran the sample three times through separate sequencers to be absolute certain."
"Tell me," Damian commanded flatly.
Dr. Evans pulled out the paper and placed it on the mahogany desk. "The biological probability of maternity between Noelle Bishop and the infants Leo, Mateo, and Clara Marchetti is 99.999%. She is their biological mother."
Damian didn't flinch, but his grip on his glass tightened until his knuckles turned white.
"And the paternal match?" Damian asked.
Dr. Evans swallowed hard. "The paternal match remains 99.999% to you, Damian."
Silence stretched across the study, thick enough to suffocate a man.
"Explain it," Damian demanded softly.
"Fourteen months ago," Dr. Evans began, reading from his preliminary investigation notes, "you provided genetic material to Dr. Julian Harrison’s high-end fertility clinic at St. Jude’s for a surrogate implantation project. You were told the surrogate was an anonymous woman from Illinois."
"Yes," Damian said.
"It appears Dr. Harrison lied," Evans revealed grimly. "He took your fertilized embryos—embryos created using your genetic material—and implanted them into Noelle Bishop under the guise of an routine IVF treatment she thought was part of a clinical trial for her own fertility health. When she successfully carried all three to term, Harrison staged their 'deaths' at birth, declared them non-viable to her, and transferred them to you as the 'surrogate' delivery you paid ten million dollars for."
Damian’s scotch glass shattered in his hand.
Amber liquid and crystalline shards splashed across the Persian rug, but Damian didn't even notice the small cut on his palm.
"He stole my children from her," Damian growled, his voice vibrating with a dark, primal rage that made the floorboards tremble. "He let a mother grieve her living children for fourteen months... while taking my money to deliver them to my doorstep!"
"It gets worse," Evans added quietly. "Dr. Harrison didn't act alone. An offshore holding company routed three million dollars of your surrogate payment into an account owned by your late uncle’s former associate—Victor Moretti."
Damian’s dark eyes snapped toward Evans with lethal intensity.
Victor Moretti. The rival syndicate leader who had been trying to dismantle Marchetti Enterprises for a decade. Moretti had orchestrated the fraudulent surrogate scheme to plant a hidden liability inside Damian's family—a ticking time bomb of leverage that could be exposed at any moment to destroy Damian's public reputation, seize his estate, and throw him into federal prison for child trafficking.
Damian walked out of the study and headed straight up the stairs.
He pushed open the nursery door softly.
Noelle was sitting in the armchair, bathed in the soft glow of a nightlight. Clara was asleep against her chest, her tiny mouth open against Noelle’s collarbone. Noelle looked up as Damian entered, her hazel eyes wide and filled with anxious questions.
Damian knelt in front of her chair.
He reached into his pocket and pulled out the DNA lab report, setting it gently on her lap.
Noelle scanned the page, her eyes locking onto the numbers: 99.999% MATERNAL MATCH.
Tears overflowed her eyelashes, splashing onto the paper. "They're mine," she sobbed silently, pressing her forehead against Clara's tiny head. "My babies... my sweet, beautiful babies..."
"They are yours," Damian whispered, his voice remarkably gentle as he reached out and wiped a tear from her cheek with his thumb. "And they are mine."
Noelle looked at him, startled. "What?"
"I am their biological father, Noelle," Damian revealed softly. "We were both victims of a nightmare created by Dr. Harrison and Victor Moretti. They used my money and your body to build a lie."
Noelle stared at him, processing the reality. The man standing before her—the most feared, powerful figure in the city—was not a child-stealer. He was a father who had been deceived just as cruelly as she had been.
"What happens now?" Noelle asked, her voice shaking. "Are you going to take them from me?"
May you like
Damian took her hand, his dark eyes burning with absolute, unwavering conviction. "Never. You will never be separated from these children again. I give you my word as a Marchetti."
He stood up, looking down at her and their sleeping children. "Tomorrow, the war begins. And I will burn this city to the ground before I let anyone hurt my family."
