I drew in a sharp breath and patted Heath’s chest before moving around him.
Ethan lifted his hand for a high five as we passed, and Tessa did not leave him hanging.
Elisabeth was on her feet and wrapping me into a bear hug before I knew what had hit me.
“This changes nothing,” she vowed.
She was wrong; it changed everything. But different could be good. Nothing was worse than standing immobile in Walt’s fiery inferno, waiting to die. And that was exactly what I’d been doing for the last seven years.
I backed out of her hug and lifted Tessa into my arms. “I know. I’m okay. Really. It is what it is at this point. I just want it over with so we can all move on with our lives. This is step one.”
“You’re incredible,” Elisabeth gasped, tears filling her eyes.
I wasn’t. I was just making the best of the shit hand I’d been dealt.
Grinning, I sat down in an oversized chair and arranged Tessa and her iPad on my lap. I reached up and caught Heath’s hand from where he was standing behind me. “Let’s do this. Rip the Band-Aid off, Doc.”
Elisabeth shuffled back to her position with Roman and nodded at Doctor Hurly to carry on.
He cleared his throat. “Of course. Let’s get to it. Mr. Leblanc asked me here today in case there were any questions from either party. However, the results of our testing are quite straightforward.” He flipped through the papers in his hand before passing one to me and another copy to Elisabeth. “First off, our tests were performed—”
I interrupted him. “Please save your explanations for later. Just tell us what you found.”
“Right.” He smiled tightly, glancing around the room. “In the case of maternity, we have found to a degree of a 99.8 percent certainty that Tessa Noir is the daughter of Elisabeth Leblanc.”
My lungs seized for the briefest of seconds.
Quick. Fast. And to the point.
The truth still took my breath away, but then it was done.
I could live with done. Done meant I’d lived through it and come out on the other side. Done meant moving forward.
And then the floor opened up and the demons of Hell attacked me from all angles.
“It also proved to a 99.8 percent certainty that Walter Noir is her father.”
Quick. Fast. And to the point.
I was stabbed in the heart with a verbal blow so painful that I wished I hadn’t lived to see the other side.
The room fell silent to my ears even as chaos broke out around me. Roman shot to his feet, Elisabeth right beside him.
And I stared ahead, utterly numb.
I was vaguely aware of Heath plucking Tessa from my lap. I didn’t have it in me to fight him. My arms fell to my sides, limp and empty. So fucking empty. Just like the gaping hole in my chest where my heart had once been.
Elisabeth is her mother.
Walt is her father.
Embryos hadn’t been swapped.
They’d been created.
Walter fucking Noir had paid someone to give him the egg I couldn’t.
And then he’d used me as nothing more than a vessel to deliver her into Satan’s lair.
I blinked, my entire life flashing on the backs of my lids.
His words slicing me like razor blades.
His hands pounding me unconsciousness because I had the audacity to breathe without his permission.
His insecurities keeping me caged like an animal.
His body becoming a weapon, stealing bits of me until, ultimately, I broke.
Yet, not one of those things came even close to the pain he’d just inflicted.
Walt didn’t even have to be present to destroy me.
I’d only thought I’d gotten free of him the day Heath and Roman had carried us out.
The truth was…there was no escape.
He would never stop.
He’d ruined every last part of me.
And, now, he was going to ruin her too.
The most God-awful, agonizing scream I’d ever heard hit my ears.
It wasn’t until Heath appeared in front of me that I realized it was coming from my mouth.
The scream tore from her throat just as Ethan raced Tessa into another room. It wasn’t far enough. There wasn’t a person in a hundred-yard radius of that house who could have missed her tortured cry.
The visceral devastation gutted me.
I rushed to her, wrapping her in a hug, but she fought against me until I was forced to release her.
Her fists hammered against my chest as she screamed, “No!” at the top of her lungs.
“Clare!” I yelled in an attempt to snap her out of it, but she was inconsolable. Her feral eyes stared right through me.
“No. No. No. No,” she repeated through broken cries and angry screams.
“Breathe, babe,” I urged as she backed away from me.
“He’s going to kill me,” she sobbed, tripping over the chair and falling on her ass.
I lunged to catch her, but she swatted my hands away.
She scrambled on all fours until her back hit the wall and she threw a hand up to stop me. “He’ll kill us all!”