Chapter 3

The next few days passed in a blur of logistics. I found a new, small apartment in a different part of the city. It was sparse and empty, but it was a clean slate. I called a moving company to get my essential belongings from the old place. I gave them strict instructions: my clothes, my books, and all of my architectural equipment from the corner of the living room. Everything else was to be left.

I didn't want to go back there. I couldn't stand the thought of seeing the space that was once filled with our shared life. I arranged for them to go while I was at work, signing the papers digitally.

The only person I talked to was Mark. He had called, his voice full of genuine anger on my behalf.

"I can't believe her, man. I just... I can't. And Liam, that snake. I always knew there was something off about him."

"You and me both," I said, my voice tired.

"What are you going to do?" he asked.

"Move on," I said simply. "What else is there to do?"

He invited me out for a beer, but I declined. I wasn't ready to face the world yet, to see the pity in people's eyes. I needed to just be alone, to process the sheer scale of the deception. It wasn' t just the lie of her love for me; it was the lie of her entire life. For seven years, I had believed I was her closest confidant, the person who knew her better than anyone. Now I realized I didn't know her at all.

About a week after the party, I was sitting in my new, empty living room, eating takeout from a box. I was starting to feel a semblance of normalcy return. The constant, sharp pain in my chest had subsided into a low, persistent ache. I was surviving.

My phone buzzed with a notification from a news app. I had forgotten to turn them off. Curiosity, like a bad habit, got the better of me. I tapped the screen.

The headline was explosive. "Olivia Reed' s Secret Child: Singer and Producer Liam Hayes Reveal They Have a Five-Year-Old Son."

I dropped my fork. It clattered loudly in the quiet room. My blood ran cold. A son. A five-year-old son.

I clicked the link. The article was accompanied by a photo. It was a paparazzi shot of Olivia, Liam, and a little boy with blond hair, coming out of a toy store. The boy was holding Liam' s hand. He looked... he looked just like Liam. The timeline spun in my head, a dizzying calculation. Five years ago. We had been together for two years then. We were living in that first tiny apartment. I was working two jobs so she could record her first EP. And she had a child? A whole child? With him?

The article was full of "sources close to the couple" explaining how they had the child young and decided to keep him out of the spotlight to give him a normal life. They claimed the boy had been living with Liam' s parents upstate. It was all spun as another chapter in their epic, romantic story. A story of sacrifice and protecting their family.

I felt sick. Physically sick. My mind raced, connecting horrible, painful dots. The mysterious "nephew" she talked about sometimes, Leo. The photos she showed me were always a bit blurry, taken from a distance. "He's shy," she'd say. The sudden trips she had to take upstate, alone. "Family emergency," she'd claim. "You're so busy with work, baby, I don't want to bother you." I had believed her every time. I had sent her off with a kiss and told her to give her family my love.

I had been paying for her to visit her secret child and her secret lover.

The full weight of the lie crushed me. This wasn't just a betrayal. This was a conspiracy. A long-term, calculated deception that had spanned the majority of our relationship. Liam wasn't just a rival who had won her heart. He was a co-conspirator. They had built a family behind my back while I was building her career.

My hands were shaking so hard I could barely hold the phone. I scrolled through social media. It was a firestorm. #OliviaLied was trending. But for every person calling her out, there were two defending her, calling it a beautiful secret, praising her for being a "devoted mother" in private. Her PR machine was working overtime.

I needed to know. I needed to be sure. It was an insane thought, born of shock and rage, but it took root in my mind and wouldn't let go. Leo. The boy's name was Leo. I remembered a time, maybe a year ago, when Olivia had come home from one of her "family trips." She was cleaning out her purse and a small, stray hairbrush fell out. It was blue, with a cartoon rocket ship on it.

"Oh, that's my nephew's," she'd said quickly, snatching it up. "He must have left it in my bag."

I had found that same hairbrush a few weeks later at the bottom of our shared laundry hamper. I hadn't thought anything of it. I just threw it in the trash. Now, the memory was a flashing red light. I had lived in a house with evidence of her child and had been too blind to see it.

My mind went to a dark place. A place of absolute certainty. I remembered one other thing. About six months ago, I had a bad case of the flu. I was laid up in bed for days. Olivia was surprisingly attentive, bringing me soup and medicine. One morning, I woke up and saw her dabbing a cotton swab on the inside of my cheek.

"What are you doing?" I had asked, my voice groggy.

"Oh, nothing, honey," she said, her smile a little too bright. "The doctor said it might be a new flu strain. They asked for a saliva sample for a study. I just wanted to help out."

It sounded plausible at the time. I was too sick to question it. I rolled over and went back to sleep. Now, the memory was horrifying. A saliva sample. DNA.

A cold dread, sharp and absolute, settled over me. There was only one reason she would need my DNA in secret.

I stood up, my movements stiff. I knew what I had to do. This went beyond a broken heart. This was about the truth. The absolute, undeniable truth. I walked to my laptop and opened a web browser. I typed in "private investigator" and "discreet DNA testing."

I found a reputable service. It was expensive, but money didn't matter. Nothing mattered except knowing. I called the number. I explained the situation in a low, controlled voice, feeling like a character in a spy movie. The man on the other end was professional and detached. He told me what they needed: a DNA sample from the child.

How was I supposed to get that? It was impossible. I was about to hang up, defeated, when I remembered. The hairbrush. It was long gone. But what else? I wracked my brain, trying to recall every detail of her life, of the boy she called her nephew.

Then it hit me. Two months ago, for his "birthday," she had asked me to help her pick out a gift. We went to a toy store. She bought him a build-it-yourself model airplane. When we got home, she insisted on building a small part of it "to make sure it wasn't too hard for him." She had glued a few pieces together on our kitchen table, her hands covered in sticky glue. She had packed it up and mailed it the next day. But she had been distracted, leaving a small piece of the model, a single plastic propeller, on the table. I had found it later that night and, not knowing what it was, tossed it into the junk drawer in the kitchen.

The junk drawer. In the old apartment. Where all her things still were.

My heart pounded. I had given her a week to clear out. It had been four days. Was it still there? Did she even notice it was missing?

I called the moving company I used. "I need you to go back to my old apartment," I said, my voice tight. "There's a junk drawer in the kitchen. I need you to empty the entire contents of that drawer into a sealed bag and bring it to me. Now. I'll pay double."

An hour later, a bewildered mover handed me a large Ziploc bag full of random junk: old pens, rubber bands, loose change, and a single, small, gray plastic propeller. I took the bag with a trembling hand.

I followed the instructions from the P.I. to the letter. I carefully packaged the propeller and sent it via courier to the lab they designated, along with a sample of my own DNA, which I collected myself with a kit they sent over. The form asked for the reason for the test. I hesitated for a long moment, then wrote: Paternity.

The two-week waiting period was the longest of my life. I went to work. I ate. I slept. But all of it was mechanical. My mind was consumed by a single, burning question. I avoided the news, I avoided social media. I didn't want to see her face or hear her name. I lived in a self-imposed bubble of silence and suspense.

Finally, the email arrived. The subject line was clinical: Case #734 Results.

My hands were sweating. I clicked it open. It was a PDF document. A series of numbers and genetic markers that meant nothing to me. But at the bottom, in bold, clear letters, was the conclusion.

PROBABILITY OF PATERNITY: 0%

Based on the analysis of the DNA profiles, ETHAN MILLER is excluded as the biological father of the child donor (LEO HAYES).

Leo Hayes. They hadn't even given him her last name. He was always Liam's.

I stared at the "0%" for a long time. It wasn't a shock. Deep down, I had known. But seeing it in black and white, a scientific certainty, was different. It was the final, brutal confirmation of the depth of her lie. She hadn't just cheated on me. She had a child with another man and let me believe, for even a second, that the child might be mine. She had violated my trust on a biological level. She had played with my life, my future, my very identity.

The ache in my chest turned into something else. Something hot and sharp. It wasn't sadness anymore. It was pure, undiluted rage. The kind of rage that burns away all the pain and leaves behind a cold, hard purpose.

She had tried to destroy me. She had tried to make me the fool in her story. But she had made one critical mistake. She underestimated me. She thought I was just the nice, supportive boyfriend she could walk all over. She had no idea what I was capable of when pushed to my breaking point.

I picked up my phone and called the best divorce lawyer in the city.

"My name is Ethan Miller," I said, my voice dangerously calm. "I need your help. And I want to leave her with absolutely nothing."