What Carson had forgotten, in his rage, is how modern DNA testing works. These tests don’t just compare two people. They place you in a whole genetic web — ethnic markers, hereditary traits, relative matches. Run Carson’s DNA, and compare it against the extensive Rutherford family genetic records that his bl*odline-obsessed father had insisted the whole family bank years ago, and the result would be impossible to hide.
Iris would come back as Carson’s daughter.
And Carson would come back as no relation to the Rutherfords at all.
He had demanded a test to expose a betrayal.
The only betrayal it would expose was the one his own mother had committed to give him his name.
Priscilla saw all of it, in one sentence, in one terrible instant, standing in the corner of that hospital room.
Oh God. He doesn’t know.
He didn’t know that he was the secret.
He didn’t know that the moment he insisted on dragging DNA into the sacred question of Rutherford bl*od, he was the one who would be found wanting.
