Chapter 8 - The Question of DNA and Deceit
The silence in the grand dining room was now so profound that you could hear the snowflakes gently brushing against the exterior windowpanes.
Chloe looked down at the glittering emerald-cut diamond on her finger as if it were a venomous snake. With a sharp, furious sob of absolute humiliation, she tore the ring from her hand and threw it across the dining table. It struck Marcus squarely in the center of his chest before bouncing off the mahogany and rolling into his water goblet with a soft splash.
"You pathetic, lying fraud!" Chloe screamed at Marcus, tears of rage ruining her designer mascara. "You told me you owned the Midwest routes! You told me you were buying out your mother's estate in cash! You used me to try and save your bankrupt little company!"
"Chloe, baby, please! Listen to me!" Marcus pleaded, leaping up from his seat, his hands outstretched in desperation. "I can fix this! We can still merge our assets! We can fight the takeover in court!"
"Fight what in court?!" Chloe shrieked, backing away from him as if he carried a contagious disease. "She owns my father's company! She owns your company! You have nothing! You are nothing!"
"Marcus," Patricia cried out, her voice trembling with hysteria as she saw her family’s entire social standing disintegrating into ash in front of her friends. "Marcus, tell her it's not true! Tell Mr. Pendelton and Mrs. Sterling that this is all a fabrication!"
Marcus turned on me, his eyes bloodshot, his composure completely shattered. In a last, desperate attempt to save himself from total ruin, he resorted to the only weapon he had left: slander.
"She’s a liar!" Marcus bellowed, pointing wildly at me. "The whole thing is a scam! Those kids aren't mine! Look at her—she was sleeping around behind my back eight years ago! She got knocked up by some random guy in Austin and now she’s using Donald Vance’s money to run a paternity extortion scheme against my family!"
The high-society guests gasped at the sheer ugliness of the accusation.
"Marcus, stop it!" Patricia yelled, but Marcus was completely unhinged.
"I demand a DNA test!" Marcus roared. "I want court-ordered blood tests right now! You won't get a single penny of child support from me, Kesha! Not one cent!"
I didn't flinch. I didn't raise my voice. I simply smiled with the calm assurance of a grandmaster who had calculated every single move twenty turns in advance.
"Dana," I said softly.
Dana stepped forward once again, opening a second folder and producing four separate medical certificates bearing the official gold seal of the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment, along with certified results from Labcorp Genetics.
"When you filed for divorce eight years ago, Marcus," I explained, my voice echoing with icy clarity, "the court mandated a standard genetic deposit during the initial filing, which you provided before you fled the state. When the quadruplets were born in Austin, their DNA was cross-referenced with the state registry."
I slid the four laboratory documents down the table until they rested directly in front of Arthur Pendelton and Eleanor Sterling.
"Certified genetic probability: 99.998 percent," Mr. Pendelton read aloud, his voice stern and filled with profound contempt as he looked up at Marcus. "For all four children. Marcus Reynolds is indisputably their biological father."
"Furthermore," I added, leaning forward, "I have never filed for child support, Marcus. Nor will I ever. My children do not need a single penny from a failing, bankrupt fraud. However, under Colorado revised statutes, back-dated medical expenses and statutory interest for abandonment have been calculated by my legal team."
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I looked at him with an expression of pure, unyielding dominance.
"You owe eighteen million dollars in accrued debt to my holding company, and another four hundred thousand in back medical restitution. And unlike you, Marcus... I always collect what I am owed."
