Chapter 5 - The Velvet Trap
Laura agreed to let me pay for a suite on the top floor of the hotel, strictly for Sophie’s comfort and on the absolute condition that I slept in a separate room. She was not ready to forgive me, and I did not expect her to. A wound that had bled for seven years could not be bandaged in an hour.
While Sophie happily devoured room-service grilled cheese, tomato soup, and a bowl of fresh strawberries, a private concierge medical service I had summoned arrived at the suite.
"Just to be certain," Laura said, her arms crossed, watching me with guarded eyes. "Not because I doubt who she belongs to, but because I want it written in black and white on legal paper so nobody—not you, and not your vicious fiancée—can ever try to take her away from me."
"I would never take her from you, Laura," I said sincerely. "You are her mother. You raised her while I was living in ignorance."
The nurse gently swabbed the inside of Sophie’s cheek, then swabbed mine. With an expedited processing fee of ten thousand dollars, the local lab promised results in four hours.
By midnight, Sophie was fast asleep in the master bedroom, wrapped in plush down blankets, her bunny tucked securely under her arm. Laura sat at the small dining table, sipping hot tea, while I reviewed the legal files Marcus continued to transmit to my tablet.
"What is Brooke doing right now?" Laura asked quietly, staring into her mug.
"She thinks I’m still preparing for the acquisition meeting tomorrow morning," I replied, my jaw tightening as I scrolled through financial ledgers. "She doesn't know Marcus has spent the last four hours digging through her offshore accounts. And she has no idea what he just found."
"What did she do?"
"Brooke knew the acquisition of Carlyle Software would trigger an automatic thirty-million-dollar executive stock bonus for her," I said, showing Laura the screen. "She had already drafted forged wire-authorization documents using a cloned digital key of my signature. If we signed that deal tomorrow, she planned to divert twelve million dollars into an unlisted bank in the Cayman Islands by noon, resign her position citing 'burnout,' and fly to Switzerland before the market opened on Monday."
Laura shook her head in disbelief. "She was willing to destroy everything."
"She already destroyed the only thing that mattered," I said, looking directly into Laura’s eyes. "My family."
Laura looked down, avoiding my gaze, but she didn't pull away when my hand moved across the table, stopping just inches from hers.
Suddenly, my tablet chimed with a high-priority notification from the diagnostic lab.
I opened the encrypted PDF.
Laura held her breath.
*Probability of Paternity: 99.9998%. Biological Father: Grant Sullivan.*
I closed my eyes, letting out a breath that felt like it had been trapped inside my chest for seven years. I opened the file and turned the screen toward Laura.
"She’s mine," I whispered, tears blurring my vision. "She’s really our daughter."
"She’s been yours since the day she took her first breath, Grant," Laura said softly, wiping away a stray tear of her own. "The question is: what kind of father are you going to be now?"
May you like
"Whatever she needs me to be," I answered. "Starting with putting the monster who stole her childhood behind bars."
***
