Chapter 2 - THE BIRTH CERTIFICATE
Serena woke just after midnight.
Damian sat beside her bed.
For almost a minute, he could not bring himself to start.
She looked exhausted.
Her skin was pale.
A line of pain tightened her face whenever she shifted.
But her eyes were clear.
“Where’s Ava?”
“In the nursery.”
“She’s okay?”
“Yes.”
“Then why do you look like someone died?”
Damian closed his eyes.
No half-truths.
Not this family.
Not tonight.
“A woman got into the nursery.”
Serena went still.
“What woman?”
“She disguised herself as a nurse.”
Her hand moved automatically toward the empty bassinet beside the bed.
“What happened?”
“She tried to switch Ava’s identification band with another baby.”
Serena stared at him.
For a second, Damian saw no reaction at all.
Then her breathing changed.
“Is Ava ours?”
The question cut through him.
“Yes.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“Her band was never removed. Staff stopped the woman before she completed anything. We confirmed the infant footprint record and immediate delivery documentation.”
Serena’s eyes filled.
“What baby?”
“A boy. Mara Collins’s son.”
Serena whispered,
“Why?”
Damian hesitated.
“Because she wanted to raise our daughter and leave her son with us.”
Serena covered her mouth.
Then she looked at him.
“There’s more.”
He nodded.
“There is.”
She laughed weakly.
“There’s always more when you say it like that.”
He told her about the stolen uniform.
The assaulted nurse.
The photographs.
The schedules.
The changed blood type.
Then he told her about the phone call.
When he finished, Serena stared at him in disbelief.
“You were conceived through IVF?”
“Yes.”
“You didn’t know?”
“No.”
“Your parents never told you?”
“No.”
She closed her eyes.
“That is not normal.”
“No.”
“Do they think it is?”
“Yes.”
That made her laugh once despite the fear.
Then she winced from pain.
Damian reached for her hand.
“I’m sorry.”
“For what?”
“For bringing this family into your room five hours after surgery.”
Serena squeezed his fingers.
“You didn’t bring it. They were already here.”
That sentence settled somewhere deep.
Yes.
The past had arrived before Damian understood he had inherited it.
Detective Ortiz entered after Serena agreed.
She explained the current investigation without speculation.
Mara Collins remained in custody.
Natalie Price, the assaulted nurse, had regained consciousness.
She remembered Mara approaching in the service corridor asking for directions, then striking her from behind with a metal thermos.
No detailed planning.
No accomplice seen.
But one thing mattered.
Natalie remembered Mara saying something while taking the badge.
“I’m sorry. I need them to believe this happened.”
Ortiz repeated it.
Serena frowned.
“Believe what happened?”
“We don’t know.”
Damian did.
Or thought he did.
“A baby switch.”
Ortiz nodded.
“Possibly.”
Mara needed someone to believe a swap occurred.
Maybe the goal was not the swap itself.
Maybe the goal was to trigger testing.
Records.
Questions.
A chain reaction.
Serena looked at Damian.
“Your birth.”
“Yes.”
Ortiz continued.
“We searched Mara’s apartment.”
“What did you find?”
“More family material. Photos of Richard and Eleanor. Old Blackwood Reproductive Center brochures. A photocopy of a 1989 maternity register.”
Damian stared.
“What register?”
Ortiz opened her folder.
Two infants were highlighted.
BABY MALE BLACKWOOD.
BABY MALE COLLINS.
Silence.
Damian felt cold.
“Collins?”
Ortiz nodded.
“A Thomas Collins and his wife, Margaret, had a son delivered at St. Catherine’s the same night you were born.”
Eleanor had been right.
The Collins family was not only connected to the clinic.
They were connected to Damian’s birth night.
Serena whispered,
“Where is that child now?”
Ortiz looked at Damian.
“Officially?”
He nodded.
“Dead.”
“Dead when?”
“Forty-eight hours after birth.”
The room stayed silent.
Damian’s mother had delivered him at St. Catherine’s.
A Collins baby boy was also born.
The Collins baby died.
Now, thirty-seven years later, Mara Collins had tried to stage another baby swap involving Damian’s daughter.
Damian felt sick.
“Was Mara related to that baby?”
Ortiz nodded.
“Thomas Collins is her grandfather.”
“Then the dead infant was…”
“Her uncle.”
Serena stared.
Mara’s father’s brother.
A lost family child.
Damian looked toward the window.
“Does she think I’m him?”
Ortiz answered carefully.
“We’re not assuming.”
That meant yes was possible.
Damian stood.
“Then test me.”
Ortiz looked at him.
“For what?”
“DNA against Mara.”
“Relationship testing requires consent and chain of custody.”
“Fine.”
Serena sat up straighter.
“Do it.”
Damian looked at her.
She shook her head.
“You’re going to tear yourself apart if you don’t know.”
He nodded.
Ortiz agreed to arrange a court-supervised sample.
Then Serena asked,
“Where are Richard and Eleanor?”
“Downstairs.”
“I want to see them.”
Damian hesitated.
Serena’s voice hardened.
“Now.”
---
Richard entered first.
Eleanor followed.
His father looked older than he had six hours earlier.
Not physically.
Historically.
Like someone had removed the light that made him appear certain.
Serena looked at both of them.
“You kept Damian’s conception secret.”
Richard answered.
“We believed it was private.”
“From him?”
Eleanor whispered,
“We were ashamed.”
Damian stared.
“Of needing fertility treatment?”
“No.”
Her eyes filled.
“Of what happened afterward.”
Silence.
Serena looked at Damian.
He did not move.
Eleanor sat.
“In 1989, the Blackwood Reproductive Center was privately owned through one of Richard’s medical companies. We tried for years to have a child. Eventually we used IVF.”
Damian listened.
No emotion yet.
Only facts.
Eleanor continued.
“The embryo transfer worked.”
“Then?”
“Pregnancy was complicated. I carried to term.”
“So I was your biological child.”
She hesitated.
Damian felt the floor fall out.
“Mother.”
Eleanor looked at Richard.
Richard’s jaw tightened.
“Say it.”
She began crying.
“We were told the embryo used was ours.”
Damian stared.
“Were told?”
“Yes.”
“What does that mean?”
Thomas Collins worked in the laboratory.
He discovered that several patient samples had been mislabeled during one cycle due to an equipment failure and poor record management.
Richard intervened.
Public disclosure would have destroyed the clinic.
Eleanor’s pregnancy was already advanced.
No one knew whether the embryo implanted into her was genetically theirs.
Damian stopped breathing.
“You never tested.”
Richard answered.
“No.”
“Why?”
“DNA testing then was different.”
“Not impossible.”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Richard looked at him.
“Because you were our son.”
Damian laughed once.
“That’s suddenly very convenient.”
Eleanor cried harder.
“We loved you before we knew anything.”
“Then why hide it?”
No answer.
Because love was not the only thing in the room.
Reputation was too.
Richard continued.
“Thomas Collins insisted on reporting the sample problems. I removed him from the company.”
“Fired him.”
“Yes.”
“He had a baby here the same night.”
“Yes.”
“Who died.”
Richard looked away.
Damian stared.
“Did you know?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever wonder whether the infants were switched?”
Eleanor whispered,
“Yes.”
That one word changed everything.
Serena closed her eyes.
Damian could barely speak.
“You thought I might be their baby.”
“Yes.”
“For thirty-seven years.”
“Yes.”
“And said nothing.”
Eleanor reached toward him.
He stepped back.
Richard said sharply,
“Enough.”
Damian turned.
“No. You don’t get to say enough.”
“Your mother has answered.”
“No. She has confessed to living inside a question about my identity and deciding I didn’t need access to it.”
Richard’s face hardened.
“You were a child.”
“I’m thirty-seven.”
Silence.
Serena watched him.
Then asked Richard,
“What happened to the Collins baby?”
“Respiratory failure.”
“Verified?”
“Yes.”
“By who?”
Richard stopped.
Damian saw it.
“Dad.”
“The attending pediatrician.”
“Name?”
Richard’s voice lowered.
“Dr. Samuel Voss.”
Ortiz’s pen stopped.
“Voss?”
Damian frowned.
“Related to Simon Voss?”
Richard nodded.
“His father.”
The old Blackwood family attorney had a father connected to the hospital on Damian’s birth night.
Another family network.
Another line of influence.
Ortiz asked,
“Was an autopsy performed?”
Richard looked toward the floor.
“No.”
“Why not?”
“The parents declined.”
Eleanor whispered,
“They were told there was no need.”
Damian stared.
“By who?”
“Dr. Voss.”
Ortiz wrote quickly.
Then the detective’s phone buzzed.
She checked the message and looked at Damian.
“The maternity register copy in Mara’s apartment has handwriting on the back.”
“What does it say?”
Ortiz turned her phone so he could read the photograph.
ONE BABY DIED.
ONE BABY DISAPPEARED.
THE BLACKWOODS RAISED THE WRONG SON.
Serena covered her mouth.
Damian stared at his parents.
Richard finally sat down.
For the first time in Damian’s life, the billionaire patriarch looked afraid of a piece of paper.
And somewhere downstairs, Mara Collins was waiting in custody with thirty-seven years of anger attached to a baby she believed the Blackwoods had stolen.
After Richard and Eleanor left Serena’s room, Damian remained by the window.
Serena watched him.
“You still feel like their son?”
He looked at her.
“Yes.”
“Even now?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
“Good.”
“Why?”
“Because biology may explain something. It doesn’t erase thirty-seven years.”
Damian looked toward the bassinet.
“And if I’m not a Blackwood?”
Serena frowned.
“You are Damian.”
“That sounds like something people say when they’re trying to comfort someone.”
“It’s also true.”
She reached for his hand.
“You can be furious about the lie without letting the lie rewrite every relationship you ever had.”
He sat beside her.
May you like
That was harder than anger.
Which meant he probably needed it.
