## CHAPTER 15 — THE FATHER ON PAPER
Khloe read the DNA report three times.
“It’s fake.”
Harrison wanted to agree.
But the medical identifiers matched Nora’s authentic hospital records.
Khloe had never questioned paternity. She had been married to Evan when Nora was conceived.
“I was never with anyone else,” she said.
“I believe you.”
“Then how is this possible?”
Harrison examined the dates.
One medical entry had been made during Khloe’s hospitalization six months before the courthouse attack.
Evan had taken her to the emergency room after she collapsed at a family charity event.
Khloe remembered being sedated for several hours.
A fertility specialist had signed the report.
Dr. Evelyn Shaw.
“They used an embryo,” Harrison said.
Khloe stared at him.
“No.”
“It may have been done without your consent.”
“No.”
Her voice broke as she held Nora closer.
“She’s my daughter.”
“She is. Nothing changes that.”
“Then who is her biological father?”
The report listed only a case number.
Dana traced it to a sealed tissue bank connected to the Family Protection Initiative.
Judge Vale filed an emergency order to open the records.
Before the hearing, the courthouse received a bomb threat.
The building was evacuated.
Harrison carried Nora while Khloe stayed beside him in the crowd.
A firefighter approached.
“We need to move the child away from the building.”
“She stays with me,” Harrison said.
The firefighter reached for Nora.
Harrison noticed the man’s uniform.
The city patch was upside down.
He pulled Nora back.
The fake firefighter struck Harrison and ran.
Leo tackled him near an ambulance.
Inside the man’s pocket was a tracking device programmed to connect with a transmitter hidden in Nora’s blanket.
Someone had sewn it beneath the lining.
Police arrested the man, but he refused to speak.
His fingerprints had been chemically damaged.
His dental records had been removed.
Before officers could transport him, he bit into a capsule concealed inside a false tooth.
He died within minutes.
The bomb threat was declared false.
When Harrison returned to Judge Vale’s chambers, the sealed tissue-bank order had disappeared.
Vale insisted he had signed it.
The court system showed no record of the filing.
“They’re controlling the electronic docket,” Dana said.
Harrison opened Daniel’s journal.
A sentence had been written in the margin beside a list of transferred children.
Blood determines access. Identity determines ownership.
Khloe noticed a symbol repeated beside several names.
A small blue triangle.
She had seen the same symbol on Nora’s hospital bracelet after birth.
Harrison searched the archived medical documents.
Every child marked with the triangle had been conceived using genetic material from the same unidentified donor.
Subject Zero.
Nora was one of those children.
So was Harrison.
The preliminary DNA report arrived that evening.
Judge Adrian Vale was not Harrison’s biological father.
But Harrison and Nora shared enough genetic markers to suggest a close paternal connection.
Khloe looked at her brother in horror.
“What does that mean?”
Harrison read the conclusion again.
“It means Nora’s biological father may be related to me.”
“How closely?”
The laboratory had provided three possibilities.
Father.
Brother.
May you like
Or son.
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