Chapter 5 Blood Never Lies

Zane's POV

There's something about the kid.

I don't know what it is exactly-maybe the way he watches people, eyes sharp and unblinking like he's peeling back layers no one else even sees.

Or maybe it's the way he scrunches his brows when he's thinking-just like I do. He reminds me of someone.

Me.

And it's driving me insane.

I keep telling myself it's a coincidence. That Nyx just happened to have a kid who looks like he could pass for my clone at ten years old. But coincidences don't feel this intentional.

They don't pull at your gut in the middle of the night. They don't stare at you with your own damn eyes. At first, I avoided him. Avoided her.

But fate? It's a vindictive little thing. Keeps pushing us together like it's playing a game I don't remember signing up for.

The third time we ran into each other, was at a community fundraiser sponsored by Blackwood Industries. A bunch of high-end names and socialites with too much money and not enough soul.

Nyx came with her Kalyndra Jewelry team, all elegance and fire in a navy silk dress-and Adrian trailing beside her, his small hand clutched tight in hers.

I watched him from across the room as he let go of her fingers and wandered toward the dessert table. He didn't just move. He explored. Observed. Calculated.

He moved like me.

I didn't think so.

"Got a sweet tooth?" I asked, standing beside him, arms crossed.

He looked up with a smirk too old for his face. "Chocolate's a weakness. Mom says it builds character."

I chuckled despite myself. "She would say something like that."

"You know her?"

I paused. "I did. A long time ago."

He tilted his head. "Were you friends?"

"Something like that."

He stared at me, eyes narrowed, as if trying to figure out if I was lying.

"You look like me," he said suddenly.

I blinked. "What?"

"Your eyes. And your jaw." He paused. "Mom says I look like someone who doesn't matter anymore."

That hit like a punch to the chest.

I crouched beside him. "Well, I think you matter."

He smiled. And just like that, something in me cracked.

We talked for fifteen minutes. Nothing really surprising. Just him, rambling about his favorite superhero, and me pretending not to get lost in every word. When Nyx finally noticed we were together, her eyes flared wide with panic.

"Adrian!" she hissed, striding over.

He grinned. "Mom! Mr. Zane said I could try the lava cake!" She shot me a glare so sharp it could've sliced through bone. "Can I speak to you? Alone."

I followed her out to the hallway. She spun on me like a storm, hair falling over one shoulder.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"He came to me," I said calmly. "He was curious."

"You stay away from him," she snapped. "Do you hear me?"

"Why?" I asked. "What are you so afraid of, Nyx?"

Her face went pale, lips parted-but she said nothing. Just turned and walked away, her heels clicking like gunfire against the marble.

That was the moment I knew. Deep down, I'd already suspected. But that look in her eyes? That silence?

It confirmed everything.

I had to know for sure.

That night, I pulled every string I had. By the next afternoon, one of my people brought me Adrian's used fork from the gala....cleaned and sealed.

I stared at the DNA sample like it held my fate. Like it held my past and my future all at once. I sent it to the lab.

And waited.

The days crawled by. I tried to pretend I was fine. Went to meetings, answered calls, and even smiled at Mollie during a brunch I didn't remember. But my mind wasn't there.

It was stuck in the sharp lines of a five-year-old boy's face and the ghosts in his mother's eyes. I couldn't stop picturing what could've been.

What should've been.

If I hadn't rejected her that day.

If I hadn't chosen pride over love.

The call came on a Wednesday morning.

I sat alone in my office, the city sprawling below my window like a glittering lie. My phone buzzed, and my chest tightened when I saw the number.

"Mr. Blackwood," the technician said, his voice clinical, detached-oblivious to the storm rising in my chest. "The results are in."

I gripped the edge of my desk, my knuckles white.

"And?"

A pause.

A Static buzzed faintly through the receiver like the universe itself was holding its breath.

Then: "Paternal match confirmed. 99.9% probability."

Silence.

I couldn't breathe.

The world tilted-just slightly, but enough to send the blood rushing from my head. I stared straight ahead, but I couldn't see. My brain refused to process the words.

Confirmed. Paternal. He was Mine.

He's my son.

Adrian is my son.

My heart pounded so violently it felt like it might rupture from my chest. Heat surged through me, followed by a freezing wave of disbelief.

Of fury. Of something else I couldn't name-something so primal, so overwhelming, it made my hands tremble. She lied.

Nyx looked me in the eye... and lied.

She buried five years of truth behind a polished smile and a silk dress. She let me shake hands with my flesh and blood.

To punish me?

A guttural sound tore from my throat as I stood, shoving the chair back with a screech against the floor.

The crystal tumbler in my hand shattered against the marble wall, glass and scotch spraying in all directions. I barely noticed the shards slicing across my palm.

I was shaking.

With rage. With heartbreak. With something wild and uncontainable.

I had a son.

I had a son-and I missed his first steps. His first words. His birthdays. Every scraped knee and every nightmare. I wasn't there to hold him. I wasn't there to protect him.

And she knew.

She knew the whole time.