Chapter Two Hundred and Twenty-Seven
"What the hell..."
The doctor’s voice cracked so sharply it cut through the room.
Cole stopped. One foot remained planted where it had landed. The other never completed the next step. Silence swallowed the room.
Slowly, he turned. The doctor hadn’t moved. Her eyes were locked on the report in her trembling hands. Whatever color she had before had drained from her face.
The smile she’d worn moments ago was gone. And he knew even when Asli had threatened her, or when he did, she didn’t shake this much.
"What?" Cole asked.
She didn’t answer.
Her lips however, parted, closed, and opened again.
"What..." She looked down at the paper once more as though she no longer trusted her own eyes. "...this can’t be right."
Cole was already moving. Long, measured strides carried him back across the room.
He stopped beside her.
The paper trembled so violently between her fingers that he simply took it from her.
She didn’t resist.
His eyes swept over the page looking for the line that would make sense to him. He impatiently scanned through every line.
His expression didn’t change. Not even slightly. Only the muscle along his jaw tightened.
What Asli had narrated about the doctor’s dying words echoed somewhere in the back of his mind again for like a billion times.
’Ahmet is your...’
His grip on the report tightened almost imperceptibly.
’No.’ He forced himself to read it again.
Nothing changed. Maybe he was having bad sight all of a sudden. He so wanted to believe that badly. A strange heaviness settled inside his chest.
Not because he understood everything...
This was exactly the kind of truth that could destroy these people. His thoughts drifted to Asli.
She hadn’t slept.
She’d spent days chasing ghosts, convinced the answer would finally give her peace.
Instead...
This.
He folded the report once.
Then looked up.
The doctor stood frozen before him, her breathing shallow.
"Explain." He spoke only one word. Hoping to hear from him that she had mixed up the sample.
Nothing more.
Yet the woman visibly flinched.
"I..." Her throat worked. "I... only supervised as the lab technician worked. I checked and made sure nothing left or entered the lab until the samples were done being worked on."
Cole didn’t blink.
"I... He never mixes things up. Boss was also sure it would be negative so he didn’t request a copy. He..." She went silent. "Let me call him." She quickly searched for her phone again and called.
"Ann." The voice answered. "Don’t tell me you finally saw it too."
"You looked at it?" she almost yelled.
"Come on. I wanted to find out if big boss was an Alien or something. We all have been asking what kind of blood runs through him. Don’t tell anyone, I was just curious. It was the first time testing his blood. He never comes in for checkups. I was shocked when I saw the results. I had to keep it to myself. At first I thought the laboratory had contaminated the samples, or the machine was spoiled. I reran the tests and still it was positive. Please don’t tell the big boss I peeped." His breathing became uneven as he ranted.
"I thought I heard you say you supervised everything yourself," Cole asked as he watched her swallow hard. She hung up and avoided his gaze. "I had to use the washroom. But I promise I rushed back in immediately after I finished. Believe me, I even ate in the lab, which anyone would know was unprofessional of me."
Cole ignored her and lowered his gaze to the report once more.
His eyes lingered on the conclusion.
Then slowly returned to her.
"Fck!" Cole yelled. He couldn’t keep it inside. He didn’t realize how tightly he was holding it until the paper crumpled beneath his fingers.
Asli was the old man’s daughter.
His mind rejected it immediately.
How?
He had spent years watching those two try to kill each other through their organizations. The hatred between Marco and Ahmet’s father wasn’t something anyone could fake.
So how...
How could Marco have raised another man’s daughter as his own? Especially someone he hated that much. Why did he lie about Asli being the daughter of his best friend? Why didn’t Settimo look for his daughter? Not everyone could mention his name. Ahmet’s father was equally as fearful as Marco was. So why didn’t he...
His thoughts moved further.
If that report was right...
Then Ahmet...
Cole’s breathing hitched.
No.
He couldn’t even finish the sentence inside his own head.
His fingers dug deeper into the paper.
That would make Ahmet...
His jaw clenched so hard that pain shot through it.
It was wrong. Wrong in every possible way. The child. His eyes widened.
The child growing inside Asli...
His gaze dropped to the floor.
He knew enough about bloodlines to understand what this could mean.
A sickness settled in his stomach and the room suddenly felt too small.
He looked back at the report as though staring at it long enough would force the ink to rearrange itself.
It didn’t.
He replayed everything.
’Ahmet is your...’ he had wanted to say, brother.
The unfinished sentence no longer felt unfinished. Not after this. His heart pounded against his ribs.
No...
Something was still wrong.
The old doctor had been trying to negotiate for his life.
If this was what he wanted to reveal...
Why hadn’t he simply said,
"Ahmet is your brother."
Why stop there?
Why leave it unfinished? Why did he run in circles and take his time to even say it? Unless...
Unless the truth was even worse.
Cole’s head snapped up.
For the first time in years, every thought he’d trained himself to keep buried spilled onto his face.
Shock.
Disbelief.
Confusion.
Even fear.
He didn’t care who saw it.
Not this time.
Because if this report was telling the truth... there was going to be a major shift.
What would happen to the innocent child?
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