I spun around, the DNA report crumpled in my hand. Preston stood in the doorway, his tie loosened, a glass of scotch in his hand. He looked at the photos on the wall—his sister’s life documented like a high-stakes investigation—and then his eyes landed on the red folder.
“What are you doing in here?” he hissed, stepping into the room. “This room is off-limits. I’m calling security.”
“Read this, Preston,” I said, my voice trembling with a mixture of rage and pity. I held out the report from 2013.
He snatched it, his eyes scanning the lines. I watched as the color drained from his face, replaced by a sickly, grey pallor. The glass of scotch slipped from his fingers, shattering on the hardwood.
“This is fake,” he whispered. “You planted this. You’re trying to mess with my head before Friday.”
“It’s from Mass General, Preston. Look at the date. It’s from khi you needed the transplant. Dad volunteered to give you a kidney, and the universe told him the truth instead. He knew. He knew for twelve years that you weren’t his.”
Preston’s legs buckled. He fell into my father’s leather chair, the very seat of power he had been so eager to claim. “Then tại sao? Why did he keep me? Why did he let me believe…”
“Because he loved you anyway,” I said, the words tasting like ash. “Because he was a better man than Diane. He raised you, he protected you from the truth, and he watched me from a distance because he was too ashamed to admit he’d been fooled by your mother.”
I pulled out a letter from the bottom of the folder. Shaky, uneven handwriting. A stroke victim’s final effort.
