“What does her medical care have to do with my kid’s DNA?” Damian shouted.
Marcus paused for a second, and that tiny silence scared me way more than a loud answer would have. “Our doctors found a lot of unprescribed, experimental fertility drugs in her blood when we ran her labs.”
I closed my eyes tight as tears started falling. Damian looked totally confused. “What drugs?”
“Someone changed her medical files months before she ran away from your house,” Marcus explained.
My chest felt tight as the old memories came back. I remembered the exclusive doctor’s office, the regular blood tests, and the special doctor that Damian’s advisors had told us to see when we first talked about babies. We thought we were just planning a normal family, but someone had used that to trick us. Marcus’s doctors found huge lies in my medical charts, including hormone shots that I never said yes to.
Damian looked at me, his voice breaking a little. “You knew about this?”
“I only found out after I left the penthouse and Marcus’s doctors checked my blood,” I whispered.
“Why didn’t you tell me about this?” he asked, his anger turning into real hurt.
“Because I didn’t know which one of your close friends was the traitor, Damian!”
The silence after that was incredibly heavy. Damian finally asked the one question we were both terrified of. “Is the baby mine, Kate?”
The store felt tiny, and even Marcus looked a bit awkward as our life fell apart. I swallowed hard and shook my head. “The doctors couldn’t give me an absolute answer without a super advanced DNA test.”
Damian stepped back, his tough mafia act completely disappearing as he looked at me. “You honestly don’t know.”
“I was too scared to do the test, Damian.”
“What were you scared of?”
“I was scared the answer would break me completely,” I admitted, crying.
Marcus cleared his throat, breaking the heavy mood. “There is more danger here, Hampton. The fake medical files were traced back to a company owned by Fleming Holdings.”
The news hit me like a truck. Natalia. Her mean smile and her warning about babies not surviving wars made total sense now. This wasn’t a doctor’s mistake; it was a planned business attack designed to mess with our family.
Damian pulled out his secure phone, his face going completely blank, which was always a bad sign. “Lock down every single building and account owned by the Fleming family,” he ordered coldly into the phone. “Do it right this second.”
His guards started making calls immediately. Marcus watched him work. “You should also know that federal agents have been watching those exact accounts for the past two days.”
“Are you trying to help me out, Volkov?” Damian asked, looking suspicious.
“I am trying to help her,” Marcus said, pointing at me. “The minute this baby is born and people find out, every bad guy you ever pissed off will come to steal him.”
Suddenly, a sharp, terrible pain ripped through my lower stomach, making me gasp out loud and grab the edge of the maple crib.
Damian moved faster than I had ever seen him move, dropping his phone to catch my shoulders. “Kate? What’s wrong?”
Another contraction hit me immediately, way worse than the first one, making my legs give out. “Oh God, something is really wrong,” I managed to say.
Then, a sudden rush of warm water poured down my legs, soaking my clothes and pooling on the floor. Everyone in the room panicked as they realized the baby was coming a whole month early.
The store turned into pure chaos. Employees screamed, customers ran for the doors, and the guards moved to block the entrance. But through all the noise, Damian stayed completely focused on me, using his big hands to hold my face so I would look at him.
“Look at me, Kate,” he said, his voice loud and steady. “You need to breathe through it.”
I tried to listen, but another wave of pain ripped through my body. “The baby is coming too early, Damian, he isn’t ready yet.”
“He is going to be totally fine because I’ve got you,” he promised, sounding completely sure of himself. Even with the lies, the secrets, and the rival gangs, he still believed with everything he had that the baby belonged to him.
Damian picked me up in his arms easily, turning to his head guard. “Get the armored car to the front door right now!” he yelled.
Marcus moved out of the way as Damian carried me toward the doors, but right before we left, the Russian leader called out one last scary sentence. “You need to ask Natalia Fleming where her family got the live embryo from.”
Damian stopped dead in his tracks, and my blood turned to pure ice. An embryo. That meant the baby hadn’t been made normally during our last weeks together. It meant a totally different medical reality.
“What did you just say to me?” Damian demanded, turning around slowly.
Marcus looked straight at my stomach. “The baby wasn’t made naturally, Hampton. It was put there by a doctor.”
Before Damian could ask anything else, another massive pain ripped through me, making me scream. He cursed under his breath and ran out into the snow, where a line of black SUVs was waiting on Pacific Avenue. Guards scanned the roofs with their guns out as Damian slid into the back seat of the main car, pulling me against his chest as the driver hit the gas.
The cars sped through the slippery streets, the sounds of police sirens echoing in the distance. The whole city felt like a war zone as the snow started to cover the roads. Damian held my hand so tight it hurt, but his eyes looked completely blank as he stared out the window.
“Did you know anything about an embryo, Kate?” he asked quietly after a long, quiet ride.
Tears poured down my face as another pain started to build. “I swear to you on my life, Damian, I had absolutely no idea they did that to me.”
He pulled me closer to his body, his tough walls totally gone as he looked down at me with pure worry. Suddenly, his secure phone started buzzing. He answered it immediately, listening quietly for a few seconds before his whole body went totally stiff.
“What do you mean she got away from your guards?” Damian demanded, his voice dropping to a scary whisper. He listened for another second before giving an order. “Find her before the police get her story.”
He hung up slowly, his hands shaking a little bit. I looked up at him through my tears. “What happened with Natalia?”
“She disappeared from her house twenty minutes ago,” Damian said, his eyes narrowing as he thought about the time.
“She planned this whole thing from the start,” I whispered, holding my stomach as the pain got worse.
“Yes, she did,” Damian agreed, his next words totally ruining any hope of safety we had left. “And if Volkov is right, someone made this baby for a very specific business goal.”
The car sped through the storm as the snow covered the tracks behind us, and somewhere in the dark city, Natalia Fleming was running for her life from the exact people who wanted the baby alive at all costs.
PART 4 — THE GENETIC REVELATION
When I finally opened my eyes, the smell of strong hospital bleach and clean wood filled the room, making me think for a second that I was still inside the baby boutique. But the dull, heavy ache in my stomach quickly reminded me of the real trauma my body had just gone through. I gasped, trying to sit up, but a strong hand immediately held me down against the pillow.
“Take it easy, Kate, you need to rest right now,” Damian said quietly from his seat next to the bed.
He looked totally wiped out, his shirt sleeves stained with dried blood and his tie messed up. His usual perfect look was completely gone, replaced by the appearance of a guy who had been fighting for his life all night.
“How many hours have passed since we got here?” I whispered, my throat feeling super dry.
“You have been asleep for about six hours,” he told me, holding my hand a bit tighter.
Panic immediately hit me as I realized I couldn’t remember anything. “Where is the baby, Damian? Is he alive?”
Tears of absolute relief filled my eyes as he gave me a real smile. “He is alive and doing okay. He came way too early, but the medical team managed to fix his lungs in the incubator.”
A broken sob came out of my throat, followed by a weak laugh as the scary anxiety finally left my chest. “Please, I need to see him right now.”
“You will see him very soon,” Damian promised, but he didn’t move to call the nurse, and his eyes avoided mine.
I noticed the sudden distance immediately, a cold fear hitting my stomach as I looked at his serious face. “What’s wrong, Damian? What are you hiding from me?”
He stayed quiet for a long time before reaching into his jacket to get a folded piece of paper. “The lab finished the fast DNA test an hour ago,” he said, his voice sounding totally empty.
My chest felt tight. “No, please don’t do this.”
He opened the paper slowly, placing it on the small table where the big letters were impossible to miss.
PATERNITY TEST RESULTS: 0% MATCH WITH DAMIAN HAMPTON.
The whole room seemed to stop moving as I read those words. It was completely impossible based on what I knew. “Damian, I swear to you on my life, I never slept with anyone else,” I pleaded, my voice breaking.
“I know you didn’t,” he answered right away, his response shocking me into silence.
“If you believe me, then how can this test be right?” I asked, my mind racing.
“Because the fact that he isn’t mine isn’t the most impossible part of this paper,” he explained, pulling a second sheet of lab codes from his pocket and pointing to a highlighted line.
My blood turned to absolute ice as I read the name printed next to the matching code.
MATCH FOUND: MASON HAMPTON.
I stared at the name of Damian’s older brother, a guy who had been killed twelve years ago and buried in the family cemetery. “Mason couldn’t have fathered this baby, Damian, he has been dead for over ten years,” I whispered, the whole thing making my head spin.
“No, he couldn’t have done it normally,” Damian agreed, his voice turning freezing cold. “Because my brother Mason was diagnosed as completely sterile when he was a teenager.”
The memory of that old family secret flashed through my mind, reminding me of the quiet fights between Damian’s parents about not having an heir for the oldest son. If Mason was sterile, the DNA test made no sense unless something really creepy had happened.
“They used advanced science to clone his cells,” I whispered, finally realizing the truth.
“Yes, they did,” Damian confirmed, his eyes getting dark with pure rage. “Someone deliberately planned this whole pregnancy to create a fake Hampton heir for their own political gain.”
The heavy door to the room suddenly pushed open, and Marcus Volkov walked inside with a calm face. Damian’s hand automatically went to his gun, his eyes locking onto him.
“Put the gun away, Hampton, I came completely alone without any of my men,” Marcus said, lifting his hands up.
“You have exactly thirty seconds to tell me why you’re here before I kill you,” Damian threatened.
Marcus looked at me, ignoring the threat completely. “The police found Natalia Fleming’s body in an abandoned building near the docks about an hour ago.”
My heart jumped. “Is she dead?”
“She was shot by a professional before she could ever talk to the police,” Marcus revealed, looking very serious.
A cold chill went down my spine as I realized what her death meant. Someone super powerful was actively erasing every single piece of evidence connecting them to this baby.
Damian looked at the papers on the table. “I guess you already knew about these results, Volkov.”
“I thought so, but now you need the whole story,” Marcus said, moving closer to the bed. “Three years ago, a secret medical company with close ties to some rich political families started doing illegal genetic research.”
“What was the main goal of that research?” I asked, my voice shaking.
“Their goal was to engineer babies for the most powerful crime families in the country,” Marcus explained. “By controlling the kids of families that own millions of dollars, those politicians could basically run the whole underworld.”
Damian stood up from his chair, a scary vibe coming off him. “I want the names of every single person who paid for this project.”
Marcus shook his head slowly. “I could only find one real name behind the money, Hampton.”
“Give me the name,” Damian demanded.
Marcus looked straight into Damian’s eyes. “It was your own mother, Evelyn Hampton.”
PART 5 — THE MATRIARCH’S CONFESSION
The room fell into a heavy quiet that felt way more dangerous than actual gunshots. I stared at Marcus in total shock, waiting for Damian to say it wasn’t true, but my husband stayed completely still as a look of pure horror came over his face.
Evelyn Hampton was the leader of the family, a woman who kept up a perfect reputation with rich charity parties while quietly planning hits over her morning tea. She was totally obsessed with the idea of keeping the Hampton name alive at any cost.
“She chose me because of my family,” I whispered, feeling physically sick.
Marcus nodded. “You were the only girl Damian ever really loved, which made you the perfect choice for her plan.”
Damian turned away from the bed, his shoulders shaking a bit as he dealt with the betrayal from his own mom. For the first time since I met him, he looked genuinely scared of the absolute corruption in his family.
Suddenly, the loud emergency alarms started screaming through the hospital hallways, followed by the distant sound of heavy automatic gunfire. Damian pulled his gun out in a second, while Marcus quickly moved against the wall to watch the door.
The heavy door burst open, and one of Damian’s main guards fell into the room, covered in blood before he died right on the floor.
“Damian,” a calm, familiar voice called out from the smoky hallway.
My blood ran cold as Evelyn Hampton walked into the room, looking completely fine despite the violence around her. She wore a nice black suit, and two armed guards were standing next to her with their rifles up.
Damian pointed his gun right at her chest. “Don’t take another single step, Mother.”
Evelyn gave him a sad smile. “Is this how you talk to the woman who saved the whole future of your business, Damian?”
“You brought a team of killers into the hospital room where my baby is trying to recover,” he growled, his hand tight on his gun.
Her eyes moved away from him, landing on the plastic crib on the other side of my bed. “There he is,” she whispered, her cold eyes looking soft for once. “The future of our name.”
Every protective instinct in my body woke up, and I reached over to pull the tiny baby against my chest. “Don’t come anywhere near my son!” I yelled.
Evelyn looked offended. “My dear Katelyn, you should be thanking me. I spent millions of dollars to make that baby from the perfect parts.”
