99After four daughters, my husband finally got the son he begged for—only to slap me the moment he saw the baby’s blue eyes. “He’s not mine! You cheated!” he screamed. I covered my newborn and looked toward the door, where my three-star general father stood in complete silence. My husband sneered, “And who are you supposed to be?” Dad calmly reached for an encrypted phone, and my husband had absolutely no idea what that call was about to unleash...

The Metropolitan Correctional Center in downtown Manhattan was a bleak, monolithic concrete structure that smelled of industrial disinfectant, cold steel, and sweat.

I walked down the narrow, echoey corridor of the high-security visitor wing, accompanied by two armed federal marshals and Evelyn Reed. I wore a simple, elegant dark wool coat, my hair pulled back in a neat bun, holding a small leather briefcase in my hand.

The guard opened the heavy iron door to Visitation Room B.

The room was small, cold, and lit by buzzing fluorescent bulbs. In the center sat a metal table bolted to the concrete floor.

Sitting on the far side of the table, wearing an orange jumpsuit three sizes too big for him, was David.

The six days in federal custody had destroyed him. His pristine, slicked-back hair was greasy and unwashed. The arrogant, smooth skin of his face was covered in a rough, patchy stubble. Dark, purple hollows hung beneath his bloodshot eyes, and his hands trembled noticeably as he sat with his wrists handcuffed to a steel belly chain.

When the door opened and I walked in, David flinched as if he expected a blow.

"Sarah..." David gasped, his voice raspy and broken. He leaned forward as far as his chains would allow. "Sarah... please... tell me you brought the lawyers to get me out of here. This is a mistake! They have me in a block with real criminals! I haven't slept in three days!"

I sat down in the steel chair opposite him, placing my briefcase on the table. Evelyn stood quietly near the door with her arms crossed.

"You are a real criminal, David," I said flatly, my voice devoid of any warmth or lingering affection. "In fact, according to the federal prosecutor, you're one of the largest corporate money launderers in the tri-state area."

"I was doing what Robert Sterling told me to do!" David wept, tears spilling down his dirty cheeks. "I didn't know the Cayman accounts were tied to cartels! I was just executing the transfers! You have to tell your father to drop the Protocol Ironclad order! He’s the only one who can stop the Justice Department!"

"My father doesn't control the Justice Department, David," I replied calmly. "He simply handed them the evidence you were stupid enough to leave on our home server for six years."

David slammed his handcuffed hands onto the metal table, the steel chains clanking loudly.

"What about my daughters?!" he yelled, his old, frantic volatility leaking out. "What about Chloe, Maya, Lily, and Grace?! You can't take my children from me! I’m their father!"

I pulled a single sheet of paper from my briefcase and laid it flat on the table, sliding it across the metal surface toward him.

It was the official court order from the New York Supreme Court.

"Your parental rights were formally terminated yesterday morning, David," I said, pointing at the bold black text near the bottom. "You are no longer recognized as their legal father. You have zero visitation rights. You are barred from contacting them for the rest of your life."

David stared at the paper, his mouth opening and closing silently like a landed fish.

"And... and the baby?" David whispered, his eyes darting frantically across the page. "The boy? Did you get the paternity test done? Tell me! Who is his father?!"

I reached into my briefcase again and pulled out a second document—a white sheet bearing the official seal of Quest Diagnostics Laboratory, dated two days prior.

I slid it across the table.

David lunged forward, his trembling fingers grabbing the paper. His eyes scanned frantically down the page, skipping past the complex genetic markers, searching for the single line at the bottom.

PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 99.999%

ALLEGED FATHER: DAVID MORETTI

RESULT: PATERNITY CONFIRMED.

David froze. The paper shook wildly in his hand.

"He's... he's mine?" David breathed, his voice cracking into a high-pitched, pathetic whimper. "He’s my son? My real son?"

"He was your son, David," I corrected him coldly, leaning forward until my eyes were inches from his ruined face. "He had your blood. He had your legacy. But you were so blinded by your own arrogance, so obsessed with your stupid, fragile ego, that the moment you saw his blue eyes, you struck the woman who carried him for nine months."

"I... I thought you cheated!" David cried, tears streaming down his face as he clutched the DNA report to his chest. "Nobody in my family has blue eyes! Nobody!"

"My mother’s father was a full-blooded Norwegian, David," I said, my voice cutting through his pathetic excuses like a scalpel. "He had icy-blue eyes. The blue-eye gene is a recessive trait. It skipped a generation in me, and passed directly down to my son. If you had spent five minutes learning about my family instead of mocking my father’s flannel shirts, you would have known that."

David dropped his head onto the cold metal table, letting out a horrific, loud sob that echoed off the concrete walls.

"My son..." David wept into the steel table. "My boy... I have a son..."

"No, David," I said, standing up from my chair and buttoning my dark coat. "You don't have a son. You don't have daughters. You don't have a house, a career, a fortune, or a family. You have a forty-five-year sentence in a federal penitentiary."

I turned toward the exit, signaling the guard to open the heavy iron door.

"Sarah! Please!" David screamed behind me, his chains rattling frantically as he tried to stand, but the guard slammed him back down into his chair. "DON'T LEAVE ME HERE! SARAH! I’M SORRY! BRING ME MY SON! LET ME SEE MY SON!"