Chapter 164: 0.00%
Dante's POV
I sat there in the silence, his words echoing in my head.
You've always been the spitting image of—
Of what? Of who?
The sentence hung unfinished, incomplete, like a hook I couldn't quite grasp.
My hand kept tapping against my thigh.
Something about the way he'd said it. The pause. The particular tone in his voice when he mentioned genetics.
Genetics are funny that way.
I pulled out my phone. Stared at it.
Then I called Adrian.
---
"Sir? It's three in the morning—"
"I need another DNA test." My voice was steady now, certain. "My DNA compared to Richard Ashford's. Not Lorelei's. Just mine and his."
Long silence.
"Sir, are you sure—"
"Do it. Same lab. Same discretion." I paused. "And Adrian? Don't tell anyone. Not my grandfather. Not my father. No one."
"Understood. But sir—may I ask what prompted this?"
I stared at the darkness, remembering Richard's words. You've always been the spitting image of—
"A hunch. Nothing more."
"I'll need a sample from you—"
"Come by tomorrow. I'll have it ready."
After I hung up, I lay back down and felt something I hadn't felt in weeks.
Hope.
Dangerous, fragile, probably foolish—but hope nonetheless.
---
But getting Richard's DNA proved harder than I'd anticipated.
"I can't exactly walk up to him and ask for a cheek swab," Adrian said three days later, standing in my apartment with that particular expression that meant he'd hit a wall. "Not without raising questions."
"Then don't ask." I stood up, pacing. My shoulder protested the movement. "Find another way."
Adrian was quiet for a moment. "There are... less direct methods. Have someone follow him. Collect items he's recently used—a coffee cup, a cigar, something with his DNA on it."
"Do it."
"Sir, this would require surveillance—"
"I don't care what it requires." My hand found my thigh. Started tapping. "Just get it done."
---
It took four days.
Four days of Adrian's people following Richard through his daily routine. Restaurants. The club. His office.
"He's a creature of habit," Adrian reported. "Every morning, same coffee shop. Orders the same thing. Leaves the cup on the table when he's done."
"And?"
"We collected it yesterday. Sent it to the lab this morning."
---
The waiting was worse this time.
Because now there was hope. And hope made everything sharper, more painful, harder to breathe through.
I tried to work. Opened my laptop, stared at emails that meant nothing, closed it again.
I tried to sleep. Lay in bed watching the ceiling, my mind running through scenarios—what if we weren't related, what if we were, what if the first test was wrong, what if this one was wrong—
On day four, I broke.
Grabbed my phone. Pulled up Lorelei's number. Stared at it.
Just call her. Just hear her voice.
My thumb hovered over the call button.
Then I thought about Julian. About the wedding that was being planned for two months from now. About the fact that even if I was right—even if we weren't related—she'd already made her choice.
I threw the phone across the room.
It hit the wall and shattered.
---
Adrian came back on day seven.
I was standing at the window when he arrived, watching Manhattan move below with its usual indifference to individual suffering.
"The results came back." His voice was quiet.
I turned slowly.
He held out a folder. I took it with hands that shook.
Opened it.
Probability of paternity: 0.00%
The tested individuals do not share a parent-child relationship.
The paper fell from my hands.
"I'm not his son." The words came out as a whisper. "Richard Ashford is not my biological father."
"No, sir. He's not."
Which meant—
Lorelei and I aren't related.
The relief hit so hard and fast I had to sit down. My legs just gave out and I sank onto the couch, breathing like I'd run a marathon.
We're not related. We can—
But then the second realization hit, colder and harder than the first.
If Richard isn't my father, then my mother—
I looked up at Adrian. "I need to know who my biological father is."
"Sir, that might be difficult—"
"I don't care how difficult it is. Find him."
---
The investigation became an obsession.
I couldn't sleep. Couldn't think about anything except finding the truth.
Adrian worked his contacts. I worked mine. Between us, we started piecing together my mother's past like archaeologists excavating a grave.
The first breakthrough came from an unexpected source: my grandfather's study.
"I need to look through some of my mother's old things," I told him over dinner. "Do you still have any of her belongings?"
He studied me carefully. "Some boxes in storage. Why?"
"Just—trying to understand some things."
He didn't ask what things. Just gave me the key.
---
The storage unit was in Queens. Dusty. Cold. Filled with the detritus of a life that had ended too soon.
I found the boxes marked "Eleanor" in the back corner.
Inside: photographs. Letters. A journal.
I opened the journal with shaking hands.
The entries were sporadic, emotional, written in the months before she married Richard.
March 12th: James died today. I can't breathe. I can't think. Everything hurts.
James.
I turned pages with increasing urgency.
March 30th: I'm pregnant. James's baby. And he's gone and I don't know what to do.
April 10th: Richard proposed. He looks so much like James. Same height, same build, same voice. If I close my eyes, I can almost pretend...
April 25th: We're getting married next week. Richard doesn't know about the baby. I'll tell him it's his. He'll never know the difference.
I closed the journal and sat there in that cold storage unit, surrounded by my mother's ghosts.
She was pregnant when she married Richard. Which means—
I'm not Richard's son. I'm James's son.
---
"I need everything you can find on a man named James," I told Adrian the next day. "Last name unknown. Died in March, approximately thirty years ago. Connected to my mother."
The information came back within twenty-four hours.
James Thomas. Age 34. Died March 12, 1997. Cause of death: complications from acute leukemia.
There was a photo attached. Grainy. From an old newspaper obituary.
I stared at it for a long time.
He looked like me. Same bone structure. Same eyes. Same particular set to the jaw.
And he looked like Richard. Enough that my mother could have—
She was looking for a replacement. Someone who looked enough like her dead lover that she could pretend he'd never died.
---
But that still didn't explain why she'd killed herself.
I called my grandfather. "Did my mother know about Richard's affairs?"