[Caspian’s POV]
The clinic is sterile. All white walls and fluorescent lighting that makes everything feel exposed. Clinical. Like my entire world is about to be reduced to a percentage on a piece of paper.
I sit in the waiting room, hands clasped between my knees, and wish Serena was here. Not because I need her—though I do, in ways that terrify me—but because this feels like something we should be doing together. Confirming what we both already know in the space between us.
But I understand why she's not. Why the empty chair beside me stays empty.
I did this. Filed papers that felt like protection but read like warfare. Tried to build structure when what she needed was trust.
"Mr. Rothwell?" The nurse appears with a clipboard. Professional smile that's seen a thousand nervous fathers. "We're ready for you."
The swab is quick. Painless. A cotton stick scraped against the inside of my cheek, and then it's done. All that's left is waiting for the lab to confirm what I already know in my bones, what I've known since I saw Aria's grey eyes and that birthmark mirroring mine.
"Results will be available in three to five business days," the nurse says. "We'll email them directly to the address on file."
Three to five days of existing in limbo. Of knowing and not knowing simultaneously.
I thank her and leave. Walk through Manhattan streets that feel surreal, like I'm moving through someone else's life. The sounds of traffic, construction, the normal chaos of the city—all of it feels distant. Muted.
Because in three to five days, I'll have documentation proving I'm someone's father.
The thought is a weight on my chest that makes breathing difficult.
The email arrives on day four. I'm in my office, staring at acquisition projections that used to matter, when my phone buzzes.
Laboratory Results Available - Please Review
My hand shakes as I open it. The document loads with agonizing slowness, and then there it is:
Probability of Paternity: 99.99%
Black on white. Clinical. Irrefutable.
I have a daughter.
The words echo but don’t feel real. I’m Caspian Rothwell—the second son who earned every scrap of affection, who learned love was transactional, performance-based. How do I father a child when my only model made his kids compete for attention? When every relationship I’ve had was about winning, proving I deserve a place?
Terror slams through me. I’ll fail her. I’ll see obligation instead of a miracle. I’ll repeat my father’s damage, carving her to fit expectations.
The thought makes me sick.
I stare at the results until time loses shape. Finally I screenshot them and open Serena’s contact. My thumb hovers. Weeks of cold, work-only emails, truce lines carefully kept.
But she deserves to know—even if we already did.
I attach the screenshot and hit send before I can overthink it.
Then I type another message. Let my fingers create words my voice can't form:
I'm dropping the custody petition. Not because I don't want to be her father. Because I want you to choose to let me be. When you're ready. If you're ever ready.
The cursor blinks at me. Accusatory. Demanding I acknowledge what I'm really saying: I'm terrified. I don't know what I'm doing. Please don't make me do this alone.
But I can't type that. Can't expose the raw wound underneath all my careful planning.
I hit send.
The message shows as delivered. Then read. The three dots appear—she's typing—and my heart rate spikes. But the dots disappear. No response comes.
I set the phone down and return to the paternity results. Read them again like repetition will make them feel real. Like seeing 99.99% enough times will transform terror into something manageable.
It doesn't work.
An hour passes. Then another. The sun sets over Manhattan, painting my office in shades of orange and red that feel apocalyptic. Endings and beginnings bleeding together.
My phone chimes. Email notification.
From: Serena Vale Subject: Q3 Integration Audit - URGENT
My chest constricts. This is it. This is where she uses the ammunition I gave her. Where she flags every problem in my company's books and watches the merger collapse. Watches me lose the one thing I've built that was mine, not handed down, not inherited.
Maybe I deserve it. Maybe this is payment for leaving her seven years ago. For filing legal papers when I should have just asked. For being exactly the kind of man she always thought I was.
I open the email with hands that won't stop shaking.
The audit report is thorough. Brutal. She's found every discrepancy in Rothwell Industries' books—the circular dependencies, the revenue projections that don't quite align, the contracts that create liability if anyone looks too closely.
Everything that could derail this merger, laid out with the precision of a surgeon identifying weak points before making the first cut.
But then I keep reading.
Recommendations for Remediation:
She's included solutions. Step-by-step processes for how to fix each problem before they become public. Which contracts to renegotiate. Which subsidiaries to restructure. How to clean up the mess without triggering shareholder panic or board investigations.
She's not just identifying the weaknesses. She's showing me how to survive them.
The report is dated today. She's been sitting on this information for weeks—since before I filed the custody petition, maybe even before that. Had the power to destroy what I've built and chose not to use it.
Even when I gave her every reason to.
At the bottom, a single line in her precise handwriting, scanned into the document:
These need to be addressed before the merger finalizes. Let me know if you need clarification on any recommendations. - SV
Professional. Clinical. Nothing about the paternity results or my message about dropping the petition.
But it's not silence. Not warfare.
It's something else. Something that feels like a door left slightly open instead of slammed shut.
I read the recommendations again. See the hours of work embedded in them—the analysis, the research, the careful consideration of how to protect both companies. Protect what we've both built.
She could have weaponized this information. Could have used it as leverage for Aria, for custody arrangements, for anything she wanted.
Instead, she's offering help.
The realization does something to the terror sitting in my chest. Doesn't eliminate it—nothing could—but shifts it slightly. Makes room for something else to exist alongside it.
Hope, maybe. Or the fragile possibility that I haven't completely destroyed whatever chance we had.
I pull up a new email. Type and delete a dozen responses. Nothing captures what I need to say: Thank you. I'm sorry. I don't know how to do this but I'm trying.
Finally, I settle on something simple:
Received. I'll implement your recommendations immediately. Thank you for the thoroughness. And for the honesty.
I hit send before I can second-guess the subtext—that I'm thanking her for more than just the audit. For not using the weapon I handed her. For leaving the door open even when I've given her every reason to lock it.