Chapter 7 - The DNA Revelation
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Naomi’s knees buckled. She collapsed onto the floor, burying her face in her hands, sobbing uncontrollably.
Vance looked at his boss in shock. “Nurse Martinez?”
Damon walked over and knelt in front of the weeping woman. “Dr. Aris called me five minutes ago. He didn't just give me the DNA results for Zuri. He ran your fingerprints from the glass against the private clinic’s old employee database.”
Damon’s voice was remarkably calm, but the fury behind his eyes was apocalyptic.
“You were a neonatal nurse at the private clinic Elena visited,” Damon said. “The same clinic that declared her dead from sudden cardiac arrest.”
Naomi nodded frantically, tears streaming down her face. “I’m sorry. I’m so sorry. I didn't want to lie to you, but I knew if Silas found out who I was, he would kill us both.”
“The DNA test,” Vance interrupted, his strict professional demeanor cracking. “Boss, what did the results say?”
Damon slowly stood up. He looked at Zuri, sleeping peacefully on the bed, her small chest rising and falling.
“She is a 99.9% match,” Damon whispered, his voice finally breaking. “She is my daughter. She is Elena’s daughter.”
Vance staggered back a step. The implications were catastrophic. The heir to the Ashford empire, presumed dead along with her mother, had been living in poverty for three years, smuggled back into the house by a terrified nurse.
“Explain,” Damon commanded, turning a lethal gaze down on Naomi. “Explain how my wife died, and how my daughter ended up in your arms.”
Naomi took a shuddering breath, wiping her face with trembling hands.
“Elena knew she was being poisoned,” Naomi began, her voice a hollow rasp. “She came to the clinic in secret, three months before her due date. She was terrified. She said someone in your house was slipping a slow-acting neurotoxin into her tea. She knew if she stayed, both she and the baby would die.”
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Damon closed his eyes. The agony of his wife suffering in silence, trying to protect their unborn child, felt like a knife twisting in his gut.
“She bribed the head doctor to induce labor early,” Naomi continued. “But the poison had already caused too much damage to her heart.”
