Chapter 5 - The Blood Test.
.Smoke rolled beneath the storage door before anyone found the emergency latch.
Nick wrapped his shirt around Lily's blanket to block the fumes and helped Elena toward the exit.
Richard kicked at the side door while Adrian shouted for the manager.
Vivian stood frozen beside the cedar chest.
"Elena, leave the documents."
Elena looked at her in disbelief.
"You would rather they burn."
"I would rather my grandson live."
"My daughter is a girl."
Vivian blinked, and in that tiny mistake Elena saw how little she had ever cared about Lily.
Nick grabbed the wax-paper bundle and tucked it under his arm.
Richard forced the side door open.
They stumbled into the alley as a small electrical fire burned through a panel near the main entrance.
Firefighters arrived minutes later.
The storage manager insisted the alarm system had been disabled manually.
Adrian called it an unfortunate malfunction.
Elena did not believe him.
Neither did Richard.
At dawn, Richard took Elena and Lily to a private hotel suite under another name.
Nick asked to come inside.
Elena stopped him at the door.
"You threw me out six hours ago."
"I was angry."
"You signed divorce papers before I even knew there was a divorce."
Nick looked down.
"My mother said you were planning to take Lily and expose private family matters."
"And you believed her."
He had no defense.
Elena closed the door.
Later that morning, Richard arranged expedited DNA testing at an accredited private laboratory.
Elena agreed to test herself against him.
Nick reluctantly provided a sample too.
The technician explained that the preliminary relationship analysis could return quickly, with full verification to follow.
Vivian arrived at the lab before noon.
"No one authorized this."
Richard stared at her.
"I did."
"You are humiliating Nick."
Richard's expression hardened.
"You humiliated everyone when you built this family on fraud."
Vivian turned on Elena.
"Do you enjoy this?"
Elena's eyes burned.
"I gave birth four days ago, Vivian."
"I have stitches in my body, no home, divorce papers in my suitcase, and a dead mother who spent her life hiding from you."
"Do I look like I am enjoying anything?"
Vivian's face softened for one dangerous second.
Then she whispered, "Mara was weak."
Elena stepped toward her.
"No, Mara survived you."
The preliminary report arrived that evening.
Richard asked Elena to open it.
Her fingers shook so badly that she nearly tore the page.
The result stated that Richard Blackwood was overwhelmingly likely to be Elena's biological father.
Richard covered his face.
Elena felt no immediate joy.
She felt robbed.
Thirty years of birthdays, graduations, heartbreaks, and hospital rooms had vanished into a lie someone else chose for her.
Nick sat across the suite, staring at the floor.
Elena looked at him and felt fear twist through her stomach.
The technician had said Nick's relationship analysis required additional markers.
That result had not returned yet.
Nick finally raised his eyes.
"If he is your father, then what are we?"
Elena could not answer.
At midnight, Richard's phone rang.
The lab director asked to speak privately.
Richard listened for less than a minute.
Then he slowly looked at Vivian.
"You knew."
Vivian's face went blank.
Nick stood.
"Knew what?"
Richard put the phone on speaker.
May you like
The lab director's voice filled the room.
"Mr. Blackwood, the genetic data does not support a biological father-son relationship between you and Nicholas Blackwood."
