Chapter 13 - BUNNY HEART
The bullet hit the ceiling.
Damian tackled Vincent.
Leah fell.
I caught her.
Federal agents stormed the room.
Vincent and Damian crashed into a table.
The gun skidded across the floor.
Vincent grabbed a broken chair leg.
Damian punched him.
Once.
Twice.
Again.
“Damian!” I screamed.
He didn’t stop.
Vincent laughed through blood.
“That all you got?”
Damian hit him again.
“You killed Elena.”
“She was going to destroy everything.”
Another punch.
“You stole Leah.”
“I gave you Leah!”
Damian froze.
Vincent smiled.
“You should thank me.”
That was when Damian stopped hitting him.
Not because Vincent deserved mercy.
Because Leah was watching.
Damian stood.
Federal agents cuffed Vincent.
He looked at Leah.
“You’ll never know what you owe me.”
Leah buried her face in my neck.
I whispered, “Nothing.”
Back at Damian’s house, the velvet rabbit was recovered.
The blood on it belonged to one of the guards.
Leah was right.
Inside the rabbit’s chest was a tiny digital recorder.
Elena had sewn it into the stuffing.
We played it with federal investigators present.
The audio was clear.
Vincent.
Mercer.
Pike.
My mother.
Other voices.
Elena confronting them.
“You stole children.”
Vincent answered.
“We placed children.”
“You told mothers their babies died.”
“We solved problems.”
“You gave me a stolen baby.”
“You wanted a child.”
“I wanted my child.”
“Damian doesn’t know.”
“And he never needs to.”
Then my mother’s voice.
“What about Emma?”
Vincent said, “She believes the baby is dead.”
“She still cries.”
“She’ll stop.”
I closed my eyes.
Then Elena spoke.
“No. She won’t.”
Her voice broke.
“A mother doesn’t stop.”
I started crying.
Damian sat beside me.
The recording continued.
Elena threatened to expose everything.
Pike warned her.
Mercer begged Vincent to stop.
Then came the sentence prosecutors needed.
Vincent said:
“If Elena talks, arrange an accident.”
Silence filled the room.
Case closed.
Almost.
The DNA results arrived the following morning.
A federal agent brought the envelope personally.
My hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
Damian stood across the room.
Leah sat between us eating pancakes.
I opened the report.
Probability of maternity: 99.9998%.
I stopped reading.
I couldn’t see through my tears.
“She’s mine.”
Damian closed his eyes.
I pressed the report to my mouth.
“My baby.”
Leah looked at me.
“Mama sad?”
I dropped to my knees.
“No.”
I held her.
“Mama’s happy.”
Then I remembered Damian’s test.
I looked at the second page.
Probability of paternity: 0%.
I looked at him.
His face remained calm.
But I could see the pain.
Leah was my daughter.
She was not his.
I expected him to walk away.
Instead he came over and knelt beside her.
“Hey, peanut.”
Leah touched his face.
“Daddy sad?”
He swallowed.
“A little.”
She wrapped her arms around him.
“No sad.”
Damian looked at me over her shoulder.
I realized the next fight might be harder than the last.
May you like
Because we had found the truth.
Now we had to decide who got to be her parent.
