The evening sky outside was bruised with streaks of gray and copper, as if the world itself was preparing for a storm.
Ethan waited until after dinner, after the staff had cleared the dishes and the lights in the east wing had dimmed. Then, he entered the living room where Diana and Russell Blake sat reading in stiff silence. As always, Russell had a glass of scotch in his hand, and Diana was pretending to be lost in a book.
"Can we talk?" Ethan asked, standing between them.
They both looked up. Diana's smile was immediate but thin. Russell just nodded, eyes narrowed.
Without asking, Ethan dropped the printed DNA results on the coffee table. Then the hospital birth record. Then the photo from the music box.
Diana's face drained of color.
Russell didn't even blink. He just exhaled, deeply, and looked at his drink.
"Say something," Ethan demanded. His voice didn't shake. It was ice.
Diana reached for the documents but her hands trembled. She stopped.
"You weren't supposed to find that," she said finally.
"I'm not your son, am I?" Ethan asked.
Diana flinched. "We—"
"Answer me."
"No," Russell said, flatly. "You're not."
The room seemed to tilt.
Diana began crying. Not dramatic sobs—just quiet, broken shudders. "We didn't plan it," she whispered. "We didn't plan to… to steal you. We just wanted to hurt them."
Ethan's stomach twisted. "So I was what? A weapon?"
"No!" she snapped, suddenly fierce. "You were everything we lost. They took our company, our dream, our life! And no one believed us. No one helped."
Russell spoke now, his voice a low growl. "Jonah Neal was my college friend. We built SeedSpark together. I wrote every line of code. He pitched it to his dad's investors behind my back. Then married a PR genius and turned it into NealTech."
"And you… stole their baby in return?" Ethan asked, barely breathing.
"We were broken!" Diana shouted. "We had nothing left. No business. No child—we couldn't have any. And when I saw their newborn photo in the paper, smiling like royalty…" Her fists clenched. "I snapped."
Ethan stepped back, stunned.
"You raised me for eighteen years," he said softly. "And not once did you tell me."
"Would it have made your life better?" Diana whispered. "To know you were a pawn in their empire? That your birth was just another trophy on their shelf?"
Russell stood now. "We didn't love you out of guilt. We loved you because… you became ours."
Ethan stared at the two people before him. He remembered Diana singing to him when he had pneumonia. Russell cheering at every soccer match, even when Ethan sat on the bench. Their laughter, their fights, their presence.
They hadn't just raised him. They had lived for him.
But still—the truth was a wound that wouldn't close.
"You should've told me," Ethan said, voice cracking.
"We were afraid," Diana whispered. "That you'd leave. That you'd hate us. That you'd want them."
Ethan turned away.
He didn't speak again that night.
---
End of Chapter 4