Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Five
The morning dragged. Asli had been awake long before sunrise, yet the clock
on the bedside table seemed determined not to move.
She crossed the living room for what had to be the twentieth time, stopped
at the window, stared through it without seeing anything, then turned and
retraced her steps.
The file lying untouched on the coffee table caught her eye.
"When did this arrive?" She asked, looking around but found no one. She had
been waiting for this and when it came, they casually placed it on the table.
She didn’t have time for any other thing aside from finding out who her father
was..
She picked and opened it. Then, closed it again.
Not a single word was registered. This was an empty envelope. With an
irritated sigh, she tossed it back onto the table and resumed pacing.
Her phone remained clutched in her hand.
Every few seconds, her thumb lit up the screen. The silence gnawed at her.
A strand of hair slipped across her face. She tucked it behind her ear, only
for it to fall forward again moments later. It irritated her the more.
The kettle whistled from the kitchen and her nanny called her name. "Asli,
your tea."
"I’m not hungry."
"You said that an hour ago."
No response came this time.
Philip had delivered the samples yesterday. Dozens of carefully labeled
envelopes.
Some from men still alive. Others collected from their children or
grandchildren.
Enough to build a family tree if the laboratory was going to keep them after
the result.
She had watched every envelope disappear into the hands of the geneticist.
She needed to be sure who received them before she left.
Now all that remained...
...was waiting.
She hated waiting.
Waiting meant thinking.
Thinking brought back the doctor’s final words.
Your parents...
They’re alive.
Ahmet is your...
Her jaw clenched.
"No," she muttered under her breath, rubbing at her temples as if
she could erase the unfinished sentence from her mind.
The door opened and her head snapped toward it so quickly her neck
protested.
Her pulse lurched.
Two strides carried her to the entrance before she forced herself to slow
down.
’Don’t look desperate.’ She told herself.
She opened the door herself.
Cole stood outside, one brow lifting as he took in the way she had
practically thrown the door open.
"You were expecting someone."
"I wasn’t." She lied. Since when did Cole begin to knock on front
doors?
His eyes dropped to the phone still clutched tightly in her hand.
"...Right."
She looked away first. "They said today," she murmured, almost to
herself.
Cole stepped inside without another word.
He had seen her face before missions. He had seen it after executions. He
had seen it when she learned she was carrying a child.
None of them looked quite like this.
This...
This looked like someone standing on the edge of a truth she wasn’t sure she
wanted to hear, yet was dying to hear it.
Cole closed the door behind him. Asli barely looked up. "How’s
Daniel?"
He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over the chair. "He was
shot."
Her head snapped toward him.
Cole walked to the table as though he had just mentioned the weather. "He’ll
live."
She watched him carefully. He did not look bothered. Just the same calm
expression he wore every day.
"You hide it well," she murmured.
He glanced at her. "What?"
"Your worry."
A faint smile tugged at one corner of his mouth.
"I learned from the best."
Asli held his gaze for another second before looking away. At least he was
admitting he was pretending not to care.
"Take care of your brother." It wasn’t quite a request, nor was
it an order. She just felt it was the right thing to voice out.
Cole reached for the glass of water on the table.
"He’s a grown man."
"He is."
"He knows how to survive." He said.
"And yet..." Her fingers drummed against the armrest. "You’re
still his brother."
Cole didn’t answer. If anything Daniel risked his life for her. She owed him
now. She knew that with this, Cole could openly bother about him pretending it’s out
of duty.
A knock interrupted them.
One of the guards stepped inside and bowed.
"The doctor is here."
"Send her in."
The woman entered carrying a sealed brown envelope against her chest. She
stopped a few steps from Asli and bowed. "Hi."
Asli’s eyes lingered on her a heartbeat longer than necessary.
There was something different. It was not in the bow nor in the way she
stood.
It was... her face.
The corners of the woman’s lips seemed determined to curl upward, as though
she were suppressing a smile she had no business wearing.
Pride.
Asli frowned for the briefest moment, but the thought slipped away as
quickly as it came. Asli only cared about the results in her hands.
"The results?"
"Yes." The doctor extended the envelope toward her. "I
thought you’d prefer I delivered them personally."
Asli took it without another word.
The doctor hesitated before adding, "Ahmet also instructed me to be
your physician from today onward."
Asli paused only long enough to acknowledge the statement with a distracted
nod.
Her attention was already elsewhere. Her thumb slipped beneath the seal,
tearing the envelope open. Sheets of paper slid into her hands.
Her eyes raced over the first page.
Then the second.
Another page.
Another.
Each result ended the same way.
No biological match detected.
Negative.
Negative.
Negative.
Negative.
The papers trembled faintly between her fingers. She flipped through them
again. Surely she’d missed something.
Nothing changed. There was nothing new.
Her lips parted.
"What the..." The words barely escaped her. "...are these the
results for all the samples I sent?"
The whisper was so soft it almost disappeared into the room. Her gaze
remained fixed on the reports, searching them as though the missing answer
might suddenly appear between the lines.
It didn’t.
"Yes." The doctor’s answer came almost immediately. "I made
sure of it."
Asli didn’t look up.
"I stayed with the samples from the moment they entered the laboratory
until the results were printed." The woman folded her hands neatly in
front of her. "I even brought them here myself. I didn’t want anyone
tampering with them."
Asli’s jaw tightened. The reassurance should have settled her doubts. Instead,
it scraped against her nerves. Those were not the words she wanted to hear.
Secondly...
Slowly, she lifted her head. The doctor met her eyes without flinching.
She looked... comfortable. Far too comfortably. There was no nervous swallow. No hurried apology nor careful choice of words people usually made around her. She
spoke as though they had known each other for years.
As though there wasn’t a gun sitting within Asli’s reach. As though she had
forgotten exactly who she was talking to. It irritated Asli far more than it
should have.
"I didn’t ask how carefully you handled them," she said, her voice
clipped. "I asked if these are the results for every sample I sent."
The doctor’s smile didn’t disappear.
"They are."
And somehow, that calm confidence irritated Asli even more.
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter