Chapter 13
They wanted proof of blood.
Not because anyone doubted Sadie was mine.
Because someone intended to create doubt.
That was my first thought.
It was right.
Thomas found the missing hairbrush in Victor’s car.
Alongside a sealed envelope containing another sample.
Male.
Unknown.
I looked at Victor.
He said nothing.
Samuel looked disgusted.
“What were you doing?”
Victor finally answered.
“Protecting the family from uncertainty.”
I almost laughed.
“What uncertainty?”
He looked at Sadie’s brush.
“Paternity.”
Anthony stared.
“You’re serious?”
Gloria closed her eyes.
There it was.
She knew.
Maybe not every detail.
Enough.
I looked at my aunt.
“You fed my daughter scraps while helping prepare a story that she might not even be mine.”
Her mouth tightened.
“You never tested.”
I stared.
“I didn’t need to.”
“That’s emotional.”
“No.”
My voice dropped.
“That’s fatherhood.”
Victor scoffed.
“Convenient.”
I stepped closer.
“Whose sample?”
Silence.
Thomas opened the envelope carefully.
A label.
N.M.
My stomach tightened.
Nicholas Marchetti.
My younger cousin.
Dead four years.
Sadie’s mother, Elena, had known him.
Everyone had.
Victor wanted to compare Sadie’s DNA to Nicholas and create enough ambiguity around old relationships to spread suspicion.
Not prove.
Suggest.
That is how family coups work best.
Never state what can be disproven.
Ask questions until loyalty gets tired.
Anthony looked sick.
“You were going to tell people Sadie might be Nicholas’s?”
Victor said nothing.
Gloria spoke.
“Her mother spent time with him.”
I turned.
“At family dinners.”
“She confided in him.”
“He was her cousin by marriage.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
I cut her off.
“No.”
The room went quiet.
“You don’t get to dirty a dead woman because your argument needs another layer.”
Elena had died two years earlier.
Sadie barely remembered her.
Now Gloria was willing to stain that memory to reduce a child’s place in the family.
I looked at Samuel.
“This is your council.”
His face hardened.
“No.”
He stood.
“This is not what I agreed to.”
Victor snapped, “Sit down.”
Samuel stared at him.
There.
Wrong tone.
Old men who love hierarchy hate being reminded someone else thinks they rank below him.
Samuel removed his family pin.
Placed it on the chapel bench.
“I’m done.”
Another capo followed.
Then another.
Not because they suddenly loved my way.
Because Victor crossed from tradition into fabrication.
That distinction mattered.
The faction began collapsing.
Gloria saw it.
She looked at me.
For the first time, afraid.
Not of losing money.
May you like
Of losing the story.
Because without the story, all that remained was what she had done to Sadie.
