Chapter 6 - The Iron in the Blood
Damian tore the grey tape off the top of the envelope with one steady pull.
He didn't read the whole page. He didn't need to. He knew how medical reports were written— he’d seen enough autopsies and blood-type evaluations over fifteen years to skip the technical jargon at the top and go straight to the bottom third of the page where the percentages were printed in bold black type.
PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 99.98%
He held the paper for five seconds.
His thumb pressed into the heavy bond paper until the corner buckled under his skin.
He looked up. Laurel was watching him, her hands still pressed against her side, her hair falling over her bruised face like a rust-colored veil.
"Well?" she asked. Her voice was thin, almost non-existent, like smoke disappearing into a chimney.
Damian didn't answer her with words. He turned the page around so she could see the dark black line at the bottom.
She didn't look at the paper. She didn't need to either; she had known since the night in Detroit when she’d sat on the edge of that squeaky bed with a fifteen-dollar test kit from the drugstore.
"He’s a Moretti," Damian said.
The words sounded heavy, like iron weights being dropped into an empty well.
"He’s Leo," she corrected him, her voice rising with a last, desperate surge of energy. "He’s just Leo, Daniel. He doesn't need your name. He doesn't need your money. He needs a room that doesn't smell of mold and a mother who doesn't get fired because some bitch in a high heel thinks she owns the world."
"He has my name now," Damian said. He handed the paper back to Rafe without looking at him. "Rafe, call the lawyer in Oakbrook. Tell him to start the trust paperwork. Ten million in government bonds, non-transferable until he’s twenty-one. The house on Lake Forest goes into his name by Friday."
"No!" Laurel shouted, stepping forward. Her rib gave a sickening pop, and she staggered, her knees giving out before she could reach the table.
Damian caught her before she hit the floor.
His arms wrapped around her waist—careful to avoid her left side where the purple bruise was spreading under her shirt—and pulled her up against his chest.
She fought him. She hit his shoulders with her knuckles, her blows weak and frantic, like a bird beating its wings against a copper cage.
"Let me go!" she sobbed. "Let me go, you bastard! You don't get to buy him! You don't get to take him from me!"
"I’m not taking him from you," Damian said into her ear, his breath warm against her hair, his arms holding her so tightly she couldn't move her arms to strike him again. "Where would he go without you? He doesn't know me. He knows you."
"Then let us go!"
"I can’t," Damian said. His voice was cold, flat, and absolute. "The North Side knows he exists now, Laurel. Marco knows. Do you think if you walk out that gate with twenty dollars in your shoe, they’re going to let you reach the bus station? They’ll take him before you cross Grand Avenue, just to see if I’ll trade three docks for his finger in a cardboard box."
Laurel went stiff in his arms.
The rage went out of her all at once, replaced by that cold, terrible horror that only mothers know when they realize the world is much bigger and much more dangerous than their own strength.
"They wouldn't..." she whispered.
"They would," Damian said. "Because I would give them the docks. And then I would kill every man in their family down to their second cousins, and they know that too. But the boy would still be dead."
She stopped fighting. She hung in his grip, her forehead resting against the hard linen of his chest, her tears soaking through his white shirt to the cold skin beneath.
Leo stopped playing with his spoon.
He looked up from his plate of toast, his large dark eyes moving from his mother to the big man holding her. He didn't look scared; he looked curious, his little face turning to one side as if he were trying to figure out why his mother was making those strange, wet noises.
"Daddy?" Leo said again.
The word was clearer this time.
May you like
Damian looked over Laurel’s head at the child sitting on his rug.
"Yes," Damian said quietly, his hand resting on the back of Laurel’s neck, his fingers tangling in her messy red hair. "Yes, Leo. I’m here."
