CHAP 5 — The Child You Rejected
Dominic tried to stand too quickly.
His body failed him before his pride could catch up.
A nurse moved forward, but he lifted one shaking hand.
“I’m fine.”
“No,” Dr. Kim said sharply. “You are alive. That is different.”
For one strange second, I almost laughed.
Dominic did not.
His eyes remained fixed on Sophie.
She slept through the beginning of the storm, one hand curled beneath her cheek, the BRAVE sticker still on her skin.
“Isabelle,” he whispered, “why didn’t you tell me?”
The room went cold.
Vanessa looked at me with desperate hope, as if my answer might make me guilty enough to save her.
I opened the envelope.
“I called your office six times.”
Dominic’s face tightened.
“I never got—”
“I went to Castellano Tower. Security had my photograph.”
He swallowed.
“I didn’t order that.”
“I sent a certified letter to your attorney.”
I placed the lawyer’s response on the table.
Dominic read it.
His face changed line by line.
Any allegation of pregnancy will be treated as an attempt to extort Mr. Castellano.
Do not contact Mr. Castellano again.
He looked physically sick.
“That isn’t my signature.”
“It is your firm.”
“It was my grandmother’s firm.”
Vanessa’s breathing changed.
There.
A crack.
I placed the fertility report beside the letter.
“Dr. Hart told us I was functionally infertile.”
Dominic stared at it.
Then at me.
“I believed him.”
“I know.”
“I believed the photos.”
“Yes.”
His eyes filled.
“I thought you left because you were guilty.”
“I left because you made staying humiliating.”
That landed.
Good.
Some truth should not be cushioned.
Vanessa stepped forward, voice shaking.
“Dominic, you were told she couldn’t have children. Everyone was told. Your grandmother handled the clinic. None of us knew—”
I looked at her.
“You knew enough to call Sophie a donor instead of a child.”
Her face flushed.
“She is a stranger.”
Dominic turned so sharply the IV tube pulled.
“She is my daughter.”
Vanessa clutched her belly.
“And what about this baby?”
“No one is blaming your child,” I said.
She glared at me.
“You don’t get to sound noble while stealing my baby’s future.”
I stepped closer.
“I stole nothing. Your future was built on a lie someone told about my body.”
Dominic looked from me to Vanessa.
“What does she mean, stealing the future?”
Vanessa’s mouth closed.
I opened the final document.
The Castellano Founders Trust.
Dominic knew it instantly.
Under the old family structure, controlling shares passed not simply to Dominic’s spouse or future children collectively, but to the first verified biological child of the senior heir, held in guardianship until adulthood.
Alessandra had spent years trying to amend it.
She failed.
Vanessa had married Dominic believing their unborn child would be the first.
Now Sophie existed.
Older.
Verified by blood.
Undeniable.
Dominic looked at Vanessa.
“Is that why you cared about the donor records?”
Her eyes filled.
“I cared because you almost died.”
“And because the chart made Sophie first.”
Vanessa slapped a hand over her mouth.
Dominic reached for me.
“Isabelle, please. Let me make this right. Let me be her father.”
I pulled away so fast he flinched.
“You don’t get to beg at her bedside after six years and call that fatherhood.”
“I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t ask enough.”
His face collapsed.
I stepped between him and Sophie’s bed.
“She is not your redemption. She is a child. My child. You may have given her blood, Dominic, but I gave her every day you missed.”
Outside the window, red and blue lights flashed against the glass.
Vanessa turned toward them in panic.
May you like
I stroked Sophie’s hair.
“The police are here,” I said. “Your grandmother isn’t the only person who needs to answer questions.”
