Chapter 6 - The Father Who Lied Twice
I stared at Gabriel through the hospital glass.
“You.”
He closed his eyes.
“Elena—”
“No.”
Matteo stood beside him.
Even he looked blindsided.
“You arranged my pregnancy?”
Gabriel stepped into the room.
“No.”
“The video says—”
“I was pretending.”
“Why?”
“To get Helena to trust me.”
I laughed bitterly.
Apparently deception was hereditary.
Gabriel explained.
Three years earlier, he learned Helena was searching for a specific frozen embryo.
Not mine.
Lucia’s.
“What?”
Before the crash, my mother and father had undergone fertility treatment.
They froze two embryos.
One became me through implantation.
The second remained stored.
After my parents disappeared, the clinic was bought by a Serrano-owned company.
Helena gained access.
The embryo still existed.
For twenty-two years.
“Why would she want it?”
Because genetically, it was another direct DeLuca heir.
Another key to the trust.
But Helena couldn’t simply produce a random adult heir.
She needed the child born into the Serrano household.
So she developed a plan.
Use the embryo.
Implant it into someone already married to Victor.
Me.
My mind rejected the sentence.
“That would make…”
Gabriel nodded.
“The baby your biological sibling.”
Not my biological child.
My mother’s child.
My father’s child.
My sibling.
But carried by me.
I started shaking.
“No.”
Gabriel moved closer.
I told him to stop.
He did.
“I found out too late.”
“How?”
“Helena contacted an old fertility specialist. I intercepted enough communication to understand.”
“Did Victor know?”
“No.”
“Dr. Cole?”
“Yes.”
Of course.
My obstetrician had coordinated hormone timing under the excuse of fertility support.
I remembered.
We struggled to conceive for two years.
Then Dr. Cole recommended a “minor hormonal protocol.”
One month later I was pregnant.
I thought it was spontaneous.
It hadn’t been.
Tears blurred everything.
“Does that mean I’m not the mother?”
Dr. Patel stepped forward immediately.
“You are carrying this child. You are the intended parent emotionally and legally unless evidence says otherwise. Genetics is one part of parenthood.”
I loved her for that.
But the betrayal still hurt.
Then Matteo asked:
“Why would Helena do this if Elena herself already holds the trust?”
Gabriel answered:
“Because Helena planned to remove Elena.”
After my death, the newborn DeLuca heir would require a guardian.
Victor.
Through marriage.
Thus the Serranos gained control.
It was horrifyingly elegant.
Then I remembered the fake paternity report.
Victor excluded.
Candidate B relative.
Of course.
The fetus didn’t genetically belong to him.
It belonged to my parents.
So Victor believed I cheated when in reality his mother had arranged an embryo transfer.
Helena weaponized the truth without revealing it.
Gabriel continued:
“I infiltrated her plan to protect you.”
“You protected me by letting them implant an embryo without my consent?”
His face broke.
“I was trying to gather proof.”
“You had months.”
“I know.”
“Did you know Victor was hurting me?”
“No.”
“Did you know Helena was?”
He couldn’t answer fast enough.
I knew.
I turned away.
Then Matteo’s phone rang.
A guard at Lakehaven.
Lucia was gone.
Someone had taken her during the confusion.
Security footage showed a woman entering disguised as staff.
Helena.
She had retrieved my mother.
And according to vehicle tracking—
Helena was heading toward Wisconsin.
Toward the Serrano estate.
Then my phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph.
Lucia tied to a chair, frightened but alive.
Beneath it:
BRING ELENA’S BABY RECORDS.
NO POLICE.
I stared at Matteo.
Helena didn’t want me.
She wanted proof of the embryo.
Why?
Then another message arrived.
Because if the unborn child wasn’t Victor’s—
May you like
the Serranos had no claim.
Unless Helena could make the child disappear too.
