Chapter 6
"You don't understand how my mother works, Claire!" Daniel practically screamed through the car speakers, his panic echoing in the confined space of the SUV. "She owns half the judges in this county! They won't care about a chain. They will care that you hit a senior citizen and kidnapped a child!"
"I am her mother, Daniel. It is not kidnapping," Claire replied, her hands gripping the steering wheel so tightly her knuckles turned white. "And if you had any shred of decency left in your body, you would be calling those lawyers to protect us, not her."
"I am trying to protect you!" Daniel argued, his voice a pathetic whine. "If you just come back, apologize for the slap, and calm down, I can smooth this over. We can put Lily in boarding school next year, away from Mom. We can compromise!"
Claire let out a dark, humorless laugh that held no trace of amusement. The sheer, cowardly nature of her husband was finally fully exposed.
"Compromise?" Claire repeated, her voice dripping with venom. "You want me to apologize to the woman who called your daughter a bastard and tied her to a post like a dog? You want to send our five-year-old away to boarding school so your mother doesn't have to look at her?"
"It's better than losing custody completely, Claire!" Daniel fired back. "Please, just be rational! I love you, but you are destroying our lives over one afternoon!"
"One afternoon?" Claire snapped. "This is five years of psychological torture, Daniel. Five years of her whispering in your ear that Lily wasn't yours, and five years of you believing her. You are a weak, pathetic man, and I am filing for divorce the second the sun comes up."
"Claire, wait—"
Claire hit the end call button on the steering wheel, cutting him off mid-sentence. The silence returned to the car, heavy and absolute.
She glanced in the rearview mirror. Lily was still sound asleep, her small chest rising and falling beneath Claire's coat.
Claire pulled the SUV into the brightly lit parking lot of a quiet, upscale motel on the outskirts of the city. She needed a safe place to stop for the night, a place where the Whitmore money couldn't immediately track them.
After securing a room under her maiden name, Claire gently carried the sleeping Lily inside and tucked her into the large, comfortable bed. The room was warm, the lighting soft. It felt like a sanctuary compared to the sprawling, toxic mansion they had just fled.
Claire walked over to the small desk in the corner of the room, pulling her leather bag from her shoulder. She unzipped it, reaching inside for her phone charger.
Her fingers brushed against the thick envelope she had retrieved from the patio floor before leaving. The DNA test results.
May you like
Claire pulled the documents out and placed them on the desk under the lamp. Margaret had only looked at the first page—the summary confirming Daniel's paternity. But Claire had ordered a comprehensive genetic mapping because of a rare blood anomaly Lily had presented with a month ago.
She turned to the second page of the results, her eyes scanning the detailed genetic markers. As she read the fine print, the rosy color of her skin drained entirely away.
