He Caught His Pregnant Wife on the Hospital Floor—But One Blinking Camera Made His Fiancée Realize Her Biggest Secret Was About to Be Exposed

The words hit me like an electric shock.

"You're lying," I choked out, stepping up the first two stairs. "Khloe and I conceived naturally. We were married two years before she got pregnant!"

"Of course you believe that," Catherine replied smoothly, not flinching an inch as I advanced. "And of course Khloe believes that. But do you remember her fertility treatments at the Midtown Clinic eighteen months ago? The hormone rounds? The 'routine' intrauterine checkups Anthony insisted on paying for?"

Khloe gasped. She stopped dead in the driveway, her face turning an unnatural, ghostly shade of gray. Her legs buckled, and she fell to her knees in the wet gravel, shielding Nathan with her entire body.

"No..." Khloe whispered, horror choking her throat. "No, no, no... Dr. Keller was Dad’s personal physician... he said it was just progesterone therapy..."

"It was an artificial insemination protocol, darling," Catherine said, turning her icy gaze onto Khloe. "Anthony couldn't bear the thought of an outsider's bloodline inheriting his life's work. He used donor material from his own preserved genetic line. Vault 409 holds the identical baseline."

"You sick, twisted monster!" Isabella screamed from the porch, suddenly launching herself at Catherine.

Isabella clawed at Catherine’s face, her fingers catching the older woman’s cheek, drawing three bright beads of blood. But Catherine didn't lose her composure. With a sharp, practiced motion, she grabbed Isabella by her wet hair, twisted her down onto the wooden boards, and pressed a heavy designer heel directly against Isabella's throat.

The exact same pose from the hospital hallway.

"Don't move, Isabella," Catherine whispered coldly, her foot bearing down until Isabella gagged for air. "You were always the dumb one. The one who spent her trust fund on retail boutiques while your sister carried the actual keys to the kingdom."

I drew the tire iron from my waistband. "Get your foot off her."

Catherine looked up at me, unbothered by the steel bar in my hand.

"Strike me with that, Mark, and the sealed envelope containing Nathan’s real genetic sequence will be submitted to the Manhattan Surrogate Court before noon. Nathan will be declared a product of illegal reproductive fraud. The state will take him. Child Protective Services will place him in a state foster home while the federal biological inquiry unfolds."

My arm froze in mid-air.

Rain poured over my head, stinging my eyes. Below me in the mud, Khloe was weeping uncontrollably, rocking Nathan against her chest, her mind shattered by the monstrous possibility Catherine had just dropped into our lives.