"Apologize!"
"Julian, I want you to apologize to Bill—right now!"
Louise didn't bother hiding the disgust in her eyes when she looked at me.
Bill, meanwhile, wore nothing but a smug grin.
Watching the two of them put on their little "devoted siblings" act, I couldn't help but laugh.
"Apologize... sure..."
I nodded.
The next second, under Louise's disbelieving stare, I grabbed the bottle off the table and smashed it over Bill's head.
Crack!
The bottle shattered on impact.
Crimson blood mingled with liquor, streaming down his face.
"Ahhh—!"
Bill clutched his head and let out a shrill, pig-like wail.
"Julian, you've lost your mind!"
Louise was livid. She rushed over with a towel, pressing it against Bill's wound, pulling him into her arms like he was something precious.
"It's okay, Bill. I'm here."
Bill's eyes rimmed red, his voice thick with pitiful, choked-back sobs:
"It's my fault, Louise. I'm the one who upset him. Please don't blame him."
Even now, Bill was still playing the innocent martyr.
Louise held him tighter and whipped around to snarl at me:
"You're an unreasonable lunatic, Julian."
"I want a divorce."
"Fine. I agree."
My voice was flat. Not a ripple of emotion.
Louise froze, clearly not expecting me to agree so easily.
Under her stunned gaze, I turned and walked out of the room.
On the drive home, I contacted a private investigator.
My instructions were clear:
"Look into Louise Sullivan. The past five years—every movement, phone record, transaction, anything you can dig up. The more detailed, the better."
I opened the front door. My five-year-old son, Alvin Gilbert, was in the living room playing with his toys.
"Daddy, what's wrong?"
He looked up at my expression and asked with concern.
I smiled and ruffled his hair.
Looking closely, Alvin didn't really look like me. He resembled his mother—Louise—much more.
But for the past five years, I'd trusted Louise completely. I had never once questioned Alvin's parentage.
Now, though, I'd heard that conversation with my own ears.
And suddenly, I couldn't bring myself to look this child in the eye—this child I'd raised with my own hands.
I pretended to pick something off his head and plucked two strands of his hair.
I called a same-day courier and sent the hair samples to two different paternity testing centers.
Rush orders. Both of them.
The wait was agonizing.
The moment the results came in, every nerve in my body pulled taut. My heart hammered without rhythm.
I opened the electronic report.
Skipped past everything else. Went straight to the last page.
Based on DNA analysis, the probability of excluding Julian Gilbert as the biological father of the submitted Alvin Gilbert is 99.99%.
Two reports. Same result.
"Ha... haha..."
A bitter, hollow laugh escaped my throat.
Five years.
One thousand eight hundred and twenty-five days.
I had poured everything I had into Louise, into Alvin, into this family—every ounce of devotion, every shred of effort I possessed.
And in the end, I was nothing but a fool who'd spent five years raising another man's son.
Bill was right.
I was a goddamn idiot.
Raising someone else's kid and feeling proud of myself for it.
There probably wasn't a bigger fool on the face of the earth.
I wondered how Louise and Bill laughed about me behind closed doors.
Rage. Humiliation. Bitter refusal to accept it—all of it crashed together inside my chest.
My fists clenched until my knuckles went white.
