The night before the engagement, my twin sister jumped out a window and ran from her own wedding.
The newborn twins, a boy and a girl barely out of the incubator, landed in my bed.
My father had his whole weight against the door. "You marry into that family in her place, or every last one of us is dead."
I was already reaching for my phone to call the police when her text came in.
"These two little bastards belong to Theodore Farley of the Harbor District. The man plays dirty, and he plays hard. Be a good girl and stand there in the line of fire for me."
I searched the Farley name.
A century-old dynasty. Reach into everything, everywhere.
A shield, was I?
Without missing a beat, I took a sharp, high-res photo of the babies with the birthmark clearly in frame, and posted it on the local resale app.
"Twins, boy & girl, 99% like new. $50, shipping included. Possibly Farley stock."
An hour later, the bedroom door my father had been guarding so fiercely was kicked off its hinges.
The richest man alive, the country's biggest celebrity, and the crown prince of the East Coast elite. Three men, every one of them locked on me.
"Where is my child."
……
A beat.
My father's legs gave out. He dropped to his knees with a thud, a dark stain spreading down the front of his pants.
"Gentlemen, these kids have nothing to do with me!"
He jabbed a finger at the cradle. "Kay Pruitt had them out there messing around with God knows who. You want their mother, go find her!"
The lead bodyguard stepped forward and planted a combat boot square on his face, shoving the rest of the words back down his throat.
I watched, cold, and reached over to draw the cradle's wind cover snug.
Curt Gilbert pulled down the mask under his ball cap, baring the face that lived on the trending lists.
"Where's Kay?"
"She posts my ultrasound to her socials, then pulls a vanishing act. Does she think I'm a corpse?"
Beside him, Michael Delgado, in a bespoke suit, let out a contemptuous laugh, kicked the broken stool out of his way, and shoved his phone up into Curt's face.
"Look at the date, big star."
"When Kay sent me this one, she was on my private yacht."
Curt read the screen, and his face went green.
"Enough."
Theodore Farley parted the two of them and walked to the cradle.
In his hand was a delivery slip from the resale app, the red-lotus birthmark on the back of the infant's neck printed right there on it.
"The two of you have been played from the start."
"That birthmark Kay sent me. Only a Farley is born with it."
Curt and Michael both froze, heads snapping toward the two babies in the cradle.
I took out my phone and set my payment code on the table.
Then I pulled open a drawer, lifted out three medical tweezers, and laid them down one by one.
"Form a line."
I tapped the table. "Three hairs each. Follicle attached."
Curt pointed at my nose. "And who the hell are you to give me orders?"
"Rush fee is two grand. Out of pocket."
I didn't look up. "Pull, or get out."
Michael stepped closer, staring at this face of mine, identical to Kay's.
"You think wearing the same face means I won't touch you?"
He raised a hand to flip the table.
"You've been paying a fortune to monitor that app, traced the birthmark all the way here. Isn't that to confirm the bloodline?"
I pushed the tweezers a little nearer. "Will flipping a table tell you who the father is?"
His hand stopped in midair, his face cycling through white and gray.
Theodore studied me for a long moment, then took the leftmost tweezers, plucked three hairs clean from his temple, and dropped them into the sterile bag I'd set out.
"Mr. Farley!"
The bodyguard burst out.
Theodore lifted a hand to silence him, scanned the code, and paid the two grand.
"Three days for results."
"Three at the fastest."
I sealed the bag shut. "Until those results come, don't soil my turf."
On the floor, my father thrashed, snarling through the boot. "Maureen Pruitt, you little animal, how dare you talk to Mr. Farley like that."
Theodore didn't so much as glance his way. The boot bore down hard, my father let out a single scream, and went out cold.
