Chapter 3 - The Drop
The question hung in the air like a unexploded bomb.
Antoine blinked, a nervous, baffled laugh escaping his throat. "What kind of ridiculous question is that? Of course I’m the father! We’re getting married in three months!"
Éléonore stood up so fast her purse slipped off her lap, spilling silver compacts across the floor. "Doctor, this is completely inappropriate! How dare you suggest such a thing to a family of our standing!"
Dr. Chen didn't flinch. She picked up the printed lab document from her tray and adjusted her glasses.
"I am asking, Mr. Bastien, because the comprehensive genetic screening panel we ran last week included a standard paternal carrier cross-check from the sample you provided during your preliminary fertility consultation two months ago."
Victoria’s face went from glowing pink to ash white in less than two seconds. She sat up abruptly on the table, clutching her dress against her stomach. "Dr. Chen, I don't think we need to discuss genetic panels today. We just came for the ultrasound!"
"Wait a minute," Antoine said, his voice dropping an octave as his eyes darted between the doctor and his pregnant girlfriend. "What genetic cross-check? What are you talking about?"
Dr. Chen turned the monitor toward the room. "The Y-chromosome material detected in Miss Lemaire’s blood sample is indeed present. The fetus is male. However, the paternal marker comparison between your DNA profile on file, Mr. Bastien, and the fetal cell-free DNA shows a zero percent probability of paternal match."
"Zero... percent?" Henri gasped, holding his chest.
"To put it in plain terms," Dr. Chen said, her voice brutal in its professional clarity, "Mr. Antoine Bastien is not the biological father of this baby."
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Outside, on the highway leading away from Paris, my taxi was cruising smoothly toward the airport terminal. Maya was looking out the window, pointing at the passing trees, while Lily slept peacefully against my arm. My phone vibrated in my lap. A text message from my former sister-in-law, Virginie—the only person in that wretched family who had ever shown me a shred of human kindness.
Chloé, where are you? Something insane just happened at the clinic. Antoine is screaming.
I stared at the screen for three seconds, hit Block, removed the SIM card from my phone, snapped it in half, and tossed the pieces into the bottom of my purse.
Back in Exam Room 3, the room erupted into total madness.
"You cheating little whore!" Éléonore shrieked, lunging toward Victoria with her fingernails bared. Henri had to grab his wife around the waist to pull her back, his own face turning a dangerous shade of crimson.
"Antoine, listen to me!" Victoria cried, tears streaming down her face as she scrambled backward on the examination table. "It’s a mistake! The lab mixed up the samples! You know doctors make mistakes all the time!"
Antoine stood frozen in the middle of the room. The predatory, arrogant man who had bragged about his "heir" five minutes after signing his divorce papers was gone. In his place stood a hollow, terrified shell.
"Who?" Antoine rasped, his voice barely a whisper. He stepped closer to the table, his hands shaking violently. "Who is the father, Victoria?"
"It’s yours! I swear it’s yours!" Victoria sobbed, holding her belly defensively.
"The test is ninety-nine point nine percent accurate, Miss Lemaire," Dr. Chen stated calmly, gathering her paperwork. "And given the genetic markers, the biological father shares specific paternal haplogroups common to Scandinavian populations."
Antoine’s brain frantically pieced the puzzle together. Scandinavian.
His mind flashed back to four months ago—the corporate retreat in Oslo. The trip Victoria had insisted on taking alone with the regional director, Axel Lindstrom. The "business meetings" that ran late into the night. The phone calls she had dodged while pretending to be in her hotel room.
"Axel," Antoine choked out, the realization smashing into him like a freight train. "It’s Axel’s kid."
"Antoine, no! Please!" Victoria reached for him, but Antoine recoiled as if her touch were pure poison.
"My son..." Antoine whispered, his knees buckling slightly. "My heir..."
"He isn't your son, Antoine!" Henri roared, his face contorted in absolute rage. "She made a fool out of you! She made a fool out of our entire family!"
"And what about Chloé?" Éléonore gasped, realization striking her like a physical blow. She grabbed Antoine’s arm, shaking him wildly. "Antoine! The divorce! Did you finalize the custody agreement?!"
Antoine looked at his mother with wide, hollow eyes. The memory of his own words from thirty minutes prior echoed inside his head with agonizing clarity: Keep the girls, Chloé. I’ve got a son on the way now.
"I... I gave her full custody," Antoine stammered, his breath coming in ragged gasps. "I signed away all parental rights to Maya and Lily... I told her I didn't want them..."
"You WHAT?!" Henri bellowed, his voice echoing off the concrete walls of the clinic corridor. "You gave away our only blood grandchildren for this intruder's bastard?!"
Antoine whipped out his phone, his fingers trembling so badly he dropped the device twice on the tile floor. He frantically dialed my number.
The party you are trying to reach is currently unavailable.
May you like
He dialed again. And again. And again.
Nothing.
