Chapter 5 - DeAndre’s Discovery
By Sunday afternoon, the calm before the storm was almost suffocating.
My parents had tried to call me thirty-seven times. My mother sent long, rambling text messages accusing me of "destroying the family," warning me that "God was watching how I treated a fatherless child," and insisting that if I simply handed over twenty percent of Nathaniel’s liquid estate, Sierra would agree not to force a public sale of the house.
I didn't answer a single text.
I forwarded every message directly to Eleanor Vance, who was compiling a comprehensive harassment and extortion file.
DeAndre had spent Saturday moving his belongings out of the Queens apartment he shared with Sierra. He had taken Lucas to his mother’s home in Brooklyn, where the little boy was surrounded by aunts, cousins, and a grandmother who adored him.
At 4:00 p.m. on Sunday, DeAndre returned to my house, bringing a small plastic kit he had picked up from a private diagnostics clinic in Manhattan.
"I did it this morning," DeAndre said, setting a sealed envelope on the kitchen island.
"A paternity test?" I asked.
"An expedited court-certified DNA panel," DeAndre said. "I took Lucas to the clinic at eight this morning. They took cheek swabs from both of us. Because I paid for the rush priority, the preliminary genetic marker report was emailed to me an hour ago."
He pulled out a printed page and slid it across the marble counter.
I looked at the bold text at the bottom of the lab sheet: Probability of Paternity: 99.998%. DeAndre Vance is the biological father of Lucas Vance.
A heavy breath escaped my lips.
"It was all a delusion," I said softly. "She knew he was yours. She knew it the entire time."
"She knew," DeAndre agreed, his tone dark and bitter. "She realized that if she claimed he was mine, she’d stay in a two-bedroom rental on my manager’s salary. But if she claimed he was Nathaniel’s, she could leverage my son into millions of dollars. She used my kid as a winning lottery ticket."
"And what about Marcus Kane?" I asked. "The notary?"
DeAndre smiled, a cold, sharp expression I had never seen on him before. "I have a friend who works in private security for the restaurant group I manage. He ran Kane’s name through a public record index. Kane is currently on probation for a fraud charge in Nassau County. If he gets caught notarizing a forged document, his probation gets revoked immediately, and he goes straight to state prison for five years."
"Has Eleanor spoken to him?"
"Eleanor called him two hours ago," DeAndre said. "She didn't threaten him. She simply sent a PDF of Nathaniel’s medical records and the email thread I found in Sierra’s lockbox, along with a polite notice that she would be presenting both to the District Attorney at nine o'clock tomorrow morning."
I lifted an eyebrow. "And how did Mr. Kane react?"
"He threw up on the phone," DeAndre said plainly. "Then he signed a full sworn affidavit confessing that Sierra paid him five thousand dollars in cash to notarize a blank template signature page dated two months prior. Eleanor has the signed affidavit sitting on her desk right now."
I leaned back against the counter, staring out the floor-to-ceiling windows toward the Hudson River.
It was almost terrifying how quickly Sierra’s grand scheme was crumbling. She had built her entire conspiracy on the assumption that I was too weak to fight back, that Nathaniel was too dead to prove his innocence, and that DeAndre was too quiet to investigate her.
She had underestimated every single person she tried to crush.
"They filed the emergency petition two hours ago," Eleanor’s voice suddenly boomed through the speaker of my phone, which was sitting on the counter. I had put her on speaker as soon as she dialed in.
"Which court?" I asked.
"Surrogate's Court, Westchester County," Eleanor said. "They requested an ex parte emergency hearing for tomorrow morning at ten o'clock to freeze all of Nathaniel’s bank accounts, revoke your executorship, and grant Sierra temporary access to the mansion as legal guardian of the alleged primary heir."
"Who is representing her?" I asked.
"A bottom-feeder named Arthur Sterling," Eleanor said, chuckling softly. "The kind of lawyer who advertises on bus stops and takes fifty percent of personal injury settlements. He thinks he’s about to land the commission of a lifetime."
"Are my parents named in the petition?"
"Your father signed a supporting affidavit," Eleanor said, her tone sharpening. "He swore under penalty of perjury that he witnessed Nathaniel verbally express a desire to provide for Lucas three weeks before his death."
A cold spike of anger went through my chest.
My own father had committed perjury to help his favorite daughter steal my home while I was mourning my husband.
May you like
"Good," I said, my voice hardening to ice. "Let him keep his signature on that paper. I want him tied to this fraud just as tightly as she is."
"Tomorrow at ten, Audra," Eleanor said smoothly. "Bring your black dress. The one you wore to the party. We are going to give your family the court appearance they deserve."
