Chapter 5 - THE SECRET IN THE BLACKWOOD BLOODLINEDominic stared at the photograph for nearly a minute before speaking.
“That’s impossible.”
We were sitting inside Rachel’s Manhattan office the following morning.
None of us had slept.
Federal investigators had taken statements but advised us not to publicly discuss the case while they searched for Victoria.
The photograph sat inside a clear evidence sleeve.
Dominic was approximately six years old in it.
Behind him stood two men.
Edmund Blackwood—the man Dominic had called Dad his entire life.
And my father, Thomas Bennett.
The message on the back made no sense.
Dominic must never know who his real father is.
Dominic looked at George.
“What does this mean?”
George shook his head.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Did my father know?”
“Thomas?”
“My father. Edmund.”
Dominic’s voice cracked on the word.
George hesitated.
“I don’t know.”
Rachel folded her hands.
“We should not leap to conclusions. The writing doesn’t identify anyone as Dominic’s biological father.”
“But why hide it?” Dominic asked.
Nobody answered.
I watched him.
For the first time since my fall, my anger made room for something else.
Not forgiveness.
Not yet.
But recognition.
Dominic was discovering that his entire childhood might have been built on lies.
I knew what that felt like.
His phone buzzed.
He ignored it.
Again.
Ignored.
Finally Rachel said, “You should probably answer.”
“It’s the board.”
“Then definitely answer.”
Dominic stood and moved toward the window.
“This is Dominic.”
Even from across the room, we could hear shouting.
The Blackwood scandal had started leaking.
News outlets were reporting that Victoria had disappeared amid allegations of corporate fraud.
Blackwood Global’s stock had fallen eighteen percent before trading was temporarily halted.
Dominic listened.
Then said, “Suspend me if you need to.”
The shouting stopped.
“I’ve turned over every record investigators requested. I will not obstruct anything to protect the share price.”
Another voice responded.
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“No.”
Pause.
“I said no.”
He hung up.
“What did they want?” I asked.
It was the first question I’d asked him that wasn’t an accusation.
He looked almost surprised.
“For me to publicly say my mother is taking a medical leave.”
Rachel laughed bitterly.
“She’s a fugitive.”
“Apparently we’re supposed to call it exhaustion.”
For half a second, I almost smiled.
Almost.
Then George’s phone rang.
He stepped away.
Dominic sat across from me.
The silence between us felt enormous.
Finally he said, “Did you know?”
“About the pregnancy?”
He nodded.
“No.”
“I keep thinking…”
“Don’t.”
“I should have been there.”
“Yes.”
“If I had left the gala when they called—”
“The baby was already gone.”
He looked down.
“But you weren’t.”
His eyes returned to mine.
“What?”
“Gone.”
His voice lowered.
“You were alive. Hurt. Terrified.”
I didn’t answer.
“And I still wasn’t there.”
That was the wound between us.
Not merely Victoria.
Not even Vanessa.
Dominic had abandoned me at the moment I needed him.
He could spend the rest of his life regretting it.
I didn’t owe him absolution.
“I thought my mother was exaggerating,” he said.
“You always thought that.”
“I know.”
“Every time she hurt me.”
“I know.”
“Do you know why?”
He waited.
“Because believing I was exaggerating cost you less than confronting her.”
Dominic flinched.
I continued.
“You wanted a peaceful life. So whenever your mother created conflict, you asked the person most likely to forgive you to absorb it.”
He looked away.
“And that was me.”
“Yes.”
His voice barely carried.
“You’re right.”
No defense.
No excuse.
Strangely, that hurt almost as much.
George returned.
“We found Victoria.”
Everyone stood.
“Where?” Rachel asked.
“Her passport was used at a private airfield outside Montreal.”
“Canada?”
“The jet filed a flight plan for Switzerland.”
Dominic swore.
Rachel immediately called investigators.
George sat down.
“There’s another complication.”
“What?”
“Victoria wasn’t alone.”
He placed a photograph on the table.
Airport security footage.
Victoria walked beside a man wearing a baseball cap.
The image was grainy.
But George recognized him.
“So do I,” Dominic whispered.
I looked between them.
“Who?”
Dominic swallowed.
“Dr. Henry Mercer.”
The name meant nothing to me.
George explained.
Mercer had been the Blackwood family physician twenty-five years earlier.
He also signed the death certificate after my father’s accident.
The room went silent.
Rachel asked the obvious question.
“Why would Victoria flee the country with him?”
George looked at Dominic.
“We need a DNA test.”
Dominic laughed nervously.
“Why?”
“If Mercer knows something about your parentage, genetic testing may answer part of it.”
Dominic stood.
“My father is Edmund Blackwood.”
“He may be.”
“He raised me.”
“That will always matter.”
“I don’t need a laboratory telling me who my father was.”
I understood his reaction.
But there was another reason DNA mattered.
A darker one.
My baby.
If Dominic and I were unknowingly related through Thomas Bennett—
I couldn’t finish the thought.
Rachel saw my expression.
“We need the test.”
Dominic saw it too.
His face went pale.
“Oh God.”
George quickly shook his head.
“There’s no evidence Thomas was Dominic’s father. Don’t assume that.”
But assumptions were impossible to avoid.
Tests were arranged.
The next forty-eight hours moved painfully slowly.
Meanwhile, the scandal exploded.
The video of Victoria pushing me leaked online.
Mia hadn’t released it.
Someone inside the investigation had.
Within hours, millions of people had watched Victoria strike me at the top of the staircase.
The public story changed.
No longer was I the drunk socialite who slipped.
I became the daughter-in-law allegedly attacked by one of New York’s most powerful women.
Reporters gathered outside the cabin.
So I left.
Rachel arranged a secure apartment under another name.
Dominic did not ask where.
That mattered.
Old Dominic would have demanded access because he was my husband.
This Dominic told Rachel, “Make sure she’s safe. Don’t tell me anything she doesn’t want me to know.”
Three days later, the DNA results arrived.
Rachel opened the report.
I sat beside Dominic.
George stood behind us.
My pulse hammered.
“No biological parent-child relationship between Dominic Blackwood and Thomas Bennett,” Rachel read.
I exhaled.
Dominic did too.
Then she kept reading.
“There is, however, evidence that Dominic does not share expected paternal genetic markers with samples belonging to the late Edmund Blackwood.”
Dominic stopped moving.
“What does that mean?”
Rachel looked up.
“Edmund was not your biological father.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
The door opened.
An investigator entered.
Agent Marcus Hale had been coordinating the financial investigation.
He carried another file.
“We may know who was.”
Dominic looked at him.
Hale placed an old medical record on the table.
“Victoria underwent fertility treatment thirty-nine years ago.”
Dominic frowned.
“She never mentioned that.”
“The clinic used anonymous donor material.”
“So my biological father was a donor?”
“Possibly.”
Hale opened another page.
“But records show the donor identity was falsified.”
“By whom?”
“Dr. Henry Mercer.”
The physician who had fled with Victoria.
Dominic’s face hardened.
“Who was the real donor?”
Agent Hale hesitated.
“We don’t have conclusive DNA yet.”
“But you have a name.”
“Yes.”
“Tell me.”
The agent looked directly at him.
“Sebastian Blackwood.”
Dominic’s grandfather.
Nobody spoke.
Dominic stared at him in horror.
“That’s not possible.”
George lowered himself into a chair.
Agent Hale explained that there were records suggesting Mercer had substituted biological material without Victoria’s informed consent.
If true, Dominic had been conceived through a monstrous act of medical deception.
Victoria might have discovered it years later.
Which could explain the secret.
But not the theft.
Not my father.
Not the murder suspicion.
Before we could process anything, Hale’s phone rang.
He listened.
His expression changed.
“Understood.”
He hung up.
“They found Dr. Mercer.”
“Where?”
“Geneva.”
“With Victoria?”
“No.”
Hale looked at me.
“He was found in a hotel room.”
“Alive?”
“Yes.”
Relief moved through the room.
Then Hale continued.
“And he says he’s willing to testify.”
“About what?”
“Everything.”
Dominic stood.
Hale looked from him to me.
“According to Mercer, Thomas Bennett’s death was not an accident.”
My heart stopped.
“And Victoria Blackwood wasn’t the person who ordered it.”
Dominic frowned.
“Then who did?”
Agent Hale stared at the photograph of Sebastian Blackwood.
“Your grandfather.”
May you like
And suddenly the dead patriarch whose portrait still hung above the Blackwood mansion fireplace became the most dangerous person in the room.
Even though he had been buried for eleven years.
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