Chapter 4 - The Truth in the Blood
Forty-eight hours had passed, but inside the VIP wing of North Harbor Medical Center, time had ceased to exist.
Lily’s condition had stabilized. Her fever had broken, and she was breathing on her own, though she remained asleep, her pale face resting against the white hospital pillows. Claire sat by her bedside, holding her small hand, her eyes red-raw from crying and sleeplessness.
The door to the private room opened quietly.
Aaron Mercer stepped inside, followed by Dominic. Dominic had discarded his heavy overcoat, wearing only a dark, tailored suit. His face was a mask of absolute, impenetrable stone, but his eyes were burning with an intensity that terrified Claire.
In his hand, he held a sealed white envelope bearing the logo of a private, high-security forensic laboratory.
Claire slowly stood up, her body aching with fatigue, placing herself between Dominic and Lily’s bed.
"Get out, Dominic," she whispered. "She’s recovering. She doesn't need this drama."
Dominic didn't answer. He walked to the center of the room, his eyes shifting to the sleeping girl on the bed.
For the first time, he really looked at her.
He saw the dark hair, the delicate shape of her jaw, and the thin, crescent-shaped scar beneath her left cheekbone. He reached up, his fingers tracing the identical, faded scar on his own left cheekbone—the result of a childhood accident he had never forgotten.
The silence in the room was deafening.
Dominic slowly tore open the envelope. He pulled out the single sheet of paper inside.
His eyes scanned the technical jargon, the genetic markers, the maternal and paternal matching sequences, until they settled on the bold print at the bottom of the page:
PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 99.999%
The paper shook slightly in his hand.
Dominic Vale, the man who had ordered executions, broken syndicates, and built a multi-million-dollar empire on the bones of his enemies, felt his knees go weak. A tear, hot and silent, slipped down his scarred cheek.
"She’s mine," he whispered, his voice cracking with a pain and a joy so profound it seemed to tear him apart from the inside out. "She’s my daughter."
Claire closed her eyes, a sob tearing from her throat as she sank back onto the edge of the bed. The secret was gone. The fortress she had spent thirteen years building had collapsed in a single second.
"Why, Claire?" Dominic asked, his voice suddenly rising, filled with a terrible, shaking anger as he stepped closer to her. "Why did you do this to me? I spent thirteen years believing I was hollow. I spent thirteen years living in a graveyard of my own making because I thought I had no future. And all this time, my daughter was out there? My blood was walking the earth, and you kept her from me?!"
"To save her!" Claire screamed back, standing up to face him, her maternal instinct overpowering her fear of the mafia boss. "Look at you, Dominic! Look at your life! Just two nights ago, you came in here with a bleeding lieutenant because someone tried to blow you to pieces in a warehouse! If your enemies knew you had a daughter, she wouldn't have made it to her first birthday! They would have used her to break you! They would have killed her just to see you weep!"
Dominic flinched as if he had been struck.
"Your father knew," Claire whispered, her voice breaking. "Before I left, he told me what would happen. He said a child of yours would only be a target. He made me promise to run. I did it to keep her alive, Dominic. I did it because I loved her more than I loved my own happiness."
Dominic stared at her, the anger in his eyes slowly dissolving into a deep, agonizing remorse. He looked back at Lily, who had just let out a tiny, soft sigh in her sleep, her dark eyelashes fluttering.
"My father is dead," Dominic said quietly, his voice turning cold and resolute. "He’s been dead for five years. I rule this city now, Claire. No one touches what is mine. No one."
"They already are," a sharp voice cut through the room as the door burst open.
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Aaron Mercer stood in the doorway, his face pale, his hand resting on the grip of his concealed firearm.
"Dominic, we have a problem," Aaron said, his voice tight with urgency. "The shooters from the South Side warehouse... we just got a lead. It wasn't a rival gang. It was an inside job. And they just figured out who the blood donor was."
