Chapter 4 - The Independent Clinic
The clinic on Michigan Avenue was quiet, sterile, and smelled faintly of antiseptic soap and old paper.
Dr. Sandra Vance, an independent geneticist with thirty years of experience and zero ties to corporate syndicates or private hospital boards, stood behind her desk with a tablet in her hand.
Roman sat in a metal chair in the corner of the examination room, his arms crossed over his chest, while I sat on the edge of the medical table holding Lily on my lap, with Leo and Luca playing quietly with a set of plastic blocks at our feet.
"The samples are processed," Dr. Vance said, looking up from her screen over the rim of her wire-rimmed glasses. She looked from Roman to me, her expression a mix of professional clinical detachment and profound human awe. "The results are absolute."
Roman stood up so fast his chair scraped loudly against the linoleum floor. "And?"
"Pamela Hayes is the biological mother of Leo, Luca, and Lily Voss," Dr. Vance read clearly from the screen. "The match is ninety-nine point nine-nine percent. Furthermore..." She paused, tapping the screen. "DNA comparison between Roman Voss and the children confirms paternity at ninety-nine point nine-nine percent as well."
The room seemed to shrink.
I looked down at Lily, my heart swelling until it felt too big for my ribs. They were mine. All three of them. Not stolen ghosts, not a cruel trick of my grief-addled brain. Mine.
Roman exhaled a breath he seemed to have been holding for a century. He closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, his broad shoulders slumping slightly as the massive, invisible weight of a stolen year lifted from his frame.
When he opened his eyes, he looked at me with a raw, terrifying vulnerability that made my breath hitch.
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"They were stolen from both of us," Roman said softly.
"Yes," I whispered. "And we are going to find out who did it."
