Chapter 63 - THE DNA TEST IN THE PRESIDENTIAL SUITE
The private lounge inside Terminal 4 had been stripped of all airport personnel, replaced by six private security operatives whose cold, emotionless stares tracked Julian's every breath. Julian sat across from Katherine von Brandt at a low mahogany table, his weapon resting flat beneath his palm, Arthur standing behind him with a hand on his backup service pistol.
"You’re lying," Julian said, his voice deadly quiet, vibrating with an intensity that made the guards twitch. "Eleanor raised me. She sat by my bed when I had pneumonia at age seven. She bled on the marble floor while my wife beat her with a baseball bat. You're an offshore proxy brought in by Charles to salvage what’s left of the trust."
Katherine smiled, reaching into her ermine coat with slow, deliberate precision. She placed a velvet-lined steel case onto the table and snapped the brass latches open with two sharp clicks.
Inside lay three sealed glass vials of preserved umbilical blood, a yellowed swiss birth registry dated thirty-five years prior, and a freshly printed genetic sequencing report bearing the embossed seal of the International Court of Justice.
"Eleanor was a sterile socialite who married Charles for his father’s title," Katherine said smoothly, pushing the genetic report across the table with her ivory cane. "When Charles discovered she couldn't produce an heir to satisfy the St. Claire trust requirements, he came to Zurich. I was twenty-seven, the sole heiress to the von Brandt banking syndicate. We made a transaction: an heir in exchange for thirty percent of the Sovereign capital reserves."
Julian looked down at the paper. The genetic match between his personal federal medical profile and the DNA sample from Katherine von Brandt was 99.98 percent. The world spun beneath his boots; every memory of his mother’s gentle smile, her soft lullabies in the Westchester nursery, suddenly felt like an elaborate theatrical performance staged inside a golden cage.
"Why give me to Eleanor?" Julian choked out, his throat burning as if he had swallowed glass. "If you wanted an heir, why abandon me in New York?"
"Because you were never meant to be a son, Julian," Katherine whispered, leaning forward, her breath smelling of peppermint and expensive gin. "You were collateral. Charles needed an heir living under American jurisdiction to prevent the federal government from seizing his domestic real estate under foreign asset laws. Eleanor was paid two million dollars a year to play the devoted mother."
Julian felt Arthur’s heavy hand drop onto his shoulder, grounding him before his rage caused him to pull the trigger. "And Victoria?" Julian demanded, his voice dropping into an icy whisper. "Why did my father let that monster into my life?"
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Katherine’s eyes glittered with sadistic amusement. "Victoria was Charles's greatest masterpiece. Do you really think a middle-class social climber just happened to meet you at a Manhattan charity gala? Charles hired her three years ago to drive you insane—or drive you into an early grave."
***
