At 10:00 AM, a courier handed Julian a thick manila envelope containing the formal petition for divorce. Buried in Exhibit 5 was the document that would finally shatter his psyche. It was a certified forensic DNA report, conducted ten days prior using an oral swab I had secretly procured from Julian, matched against DNA extracted from a pacifier I had lifted during Mia’s audacious visit to my home months ago.
Probability of paternity: 0%. Biological relationship excluded.
I could only imagine the horrific paralysis that must have gripped him as he stood on the pavement, staring at the black-and-white proof that he had torched his marriage, abandoned his biological daughter, and committed federal fraud—all for a child that wasn’t his.
I didn’t have to imagine what happened next, because my private investigator, parked discreetly across from the Emerald Condo, managed to capture the audio of the fallout.
Julian had stormed into the apartment, catching Mia frantically packing. She was on the phone, not with some college friend, but with Victor Thorne—Julian’s absolute fiercest corporate rival in the private equity sector.
“Victor, he’s onto us,” Mia had cried into the receiver, completely unaware Julian was standing in the doorway. “You promised once he was ruined, you’d take me and Leo away. The boy is yours, Victor! You told me to play the sweet intern, to make Julian believe the lie so he’d expose the company’s underbelly…”
The audio recording captured the thud of the phone dropping. It captured Julian picking it up, his voice a hollow husk as he spoke to the man who had orchestrated his utter ruin through a honey-trap.
“You’ve worked hard playing daddy, Julian,” Victor Thorne’s mocking drawl echoed through the speaker. “The trust your wife built was airtight. But your ego… your need to control women… that was your fatal flaw.”
Julian didn’t yell. He didn’t break things. According to the PI’s report, he simply sank to his knees on the carpet, clutching the DNA report, his mind completely snapping under the weight of his own hubris. Mia fled that same afternoon, taking Thorne’s child with her, leaving Julian alone in a condo purchased with stolen money.
Khloe called me as the sun began to set. “The SEC just formally indicted him. Federal prosecutors are stepping in. He’s looking at seven to ten years. It’s over, Clare.”
