“I applied some… pressure. He talked. You weren’t sterile, Marcus. You had a low count, sure. Motility issues. But it wasn’t zero. It was a ‘medical miracle,’ but entirely possible.”
“Why did he lie?”
Vance hesitated. “He didn’t want to lie. He was paid to.”
“By whom?”
Vance slid a photo across the desk. It was an old photograph of a woman with steel-gray hair and pearls.
Marcus stared at the face of his mother, Eleanor Blackwood. She had died two years ago, a pillar of society, a philanthropist.
“She hated Elena,” Vance explained. “She thought a waitress from the South Side wasn’t good enough for the Blackwood dynasty. She orchestrated the whole thing. She paid the doctor to falsify the results. She planted the seeds of doubt in your head about Elena’s ‘male friends’. She wanted the bloodline to be pure, but on her terms. When Elena got pregnant with quadruplets, your mother panicked. She thought they were a trap to secure the fortune. So she blew up your marriage.”
Marcus threw his whiskey glass against the wall. It shattered into a thousand diamonds, leaving a wet stain on the expensive wallpaper.
His mother. His own mother had played him like a fiddle. She had weaponized his insecurity. And he, in his arrogance, in his blind pride, had fallen for it. He hadn’t trusted the woman who slept beside him every night. He had trusted a piece of paper and a bitter old woman.
He slumped into his leather chair, burying his face in his hands.
He thought about the last ten years. He had traveled the world on private jets. He had dated supermodels. He had eaten in Michelin-star restaurants.
