"“Someone had to shut her up!” my sister-in-law Vanessa screamed as she hurled a bowl of hot chicken soup at me and my six-month-old daughter during Christmas Eve dinner.

Mateo instantly stepped in front of me, shielding my body with his own. “Put the gun down, Vanessa.”

Vanessa smiled, but her eyes were wild, bloodshot, and hollow. The gun trembled in her grip, the barrel wavering between Mateo’s chest and my head.

“You really thought you could just sneak in here and steal Dad’s property?” Vanessa asked, her voice high and brittle. “You always thought you were so much better than me, Mateo. The golden boy. The dutiful son who got the executive vice president title while Dad gave me a boutique that went bankrupt in six months!”

“Dad bankrupted your boutique to launder his own money, you idiot!” Mateo yelled, taking a step forward.

“Don't move!” Vanessa screeched, cocking the hammer of the revolver with a metallic click that echoed in the quiet room. “Don't you dare take another step! You don't know anything! Dad told me everything. He told me that Mom was going to give you the entire estate because she felt guilty about what she did!”

“Mom didn't do anything!” I shouted from behind Mateo. “Elena never had an affair! Ricardo made the whole thing up to trick you into turning on your brother so you wouldn't notice he stole forty million dollars from your family trust!”

Vanessa laughed—a manic, desperate sound that bordered on hysteria. “Shut up, Sofía! You’re just a gold-digger who trapped Mateo with a baby! You think I don't know why you married him? You wanted the Sterling name! You wanted the penthouse in Boston! You wanted everything that was supposed to be mine!”

“I didn't care about the money!” I screamed back. “I loved your brother! And you threw boiling soup at my baby!”

“She’s not a Sterling!” Vanessa spat, tears finally spilling down her cheeks, smearing her makeup into monstrous lines. “She has your filthy blood! Dad showed me the test results three days ago!”

Mateo froze. “What test results?”

Vanessa reached into the pocket of her robe with her left hand, never lowering the gun with her right. She pulled out a crumpled laboratory report and threw it at Mateo’s feet.

“Dad had someone take hair samples from Camila’s baby brush when you visited on Thanksgiving,” Vanessa sneered. “Read it, Mateo. Read what your precious, faithful wife has been hiding from you!”

My stomach dropped into a bottomless void. *Hair samples?*

Mateo looked down at the paper. Slowly, keeping his eyes on Vanessa, he crouched and picked it up. He unfolded it with one hand.

I watched his face. I expected rage, expected him to crumple it up and laugh at Ricardo’s desperate forgery.

Instead, Mateo’s face drained of every drop of color. His jaw dropped. His eyes scanned the lines of text, his hands beginning to shake with an intensity that rattled the paper.

“Mateo?” I whispered, cold dread creeping up my throat. “Mateo, what does it say?”

Mateo didn't look at me. He slowly turned the paper toward me.

At the bottom of the page, beneath the official seal of the state forensic laboratory, was the genetic compatibility index between Mateo Sterling and the biological sample labeled *Camila Sterling*.