Betrayed Broken Husband Becomes a Billionaire Daddy

11: Something Went Wrong

Donald Mccallister got the call from the technician three days later, her voice tight and fast, none of the careful calm from the coffee shop left in it at all.

"Someone pulled the electronic record again last night." No greeting, straight into it. "A second version exists now. Same file, but the sample identifiers don't match the first entry anymore. Whoever touched it changed the numbers after collection, not before."

Donald Mccallister stood in his own kitchen, phone pressed hard against his ear, his other hand flat on the counter like he needed something solid under his palm. "Changed how?"

"The intake number. The one stamped in front of your client." Her voice dropped lower, like saying it out loud made it more real. "It's different in the second version. Only by a few digits, close enough that nobody glancing at it would notice, but different."

"That's the number he already has photographs of." Donald Mccallister's stomach dropped straight through the floor. "He compared it against his receipt already. He knows the numbers don't match."

"Then he already has proof somebody altered the file." She said it flatly, no comfort in it at all. "A timestamp on the edit, a login credential attached to whoever made the change, all of it sitting right there in the system audit log. That's not something that disappears, Mr. Mccallister. That's the kind of thing that ends careers."

Donald Mccallister closed his eyes, his breath going shallow. "Whose login."

A pause on the line, longer than he liked. "Not mine. I already checked. Somebody with lab access made that edit, but it wasn't anyone on my shift."

"Find out who." His voice came out sharper than he meant it. "I need a name before this goes any further."

"I'll try." She didn't sound confident. "But Mr. Mccallister, if this comes out, and it will come out eventually, I want it on record that I flagged it to you the moment I found it."

"Understood." He hung up before she could say anything else, standing alone in his kitchen with his pulse hammering in his ears.

He thought about calling Stacy immediately, then thought better of it. She wanted results, not problems. Walking in with only a problem would earn him nothing but her temper, and he had exactly one card left to play, buying enough time to find out who had made the edit before anyone traced it back to a name that could be connected to either of them.

That evening he drove to her penthouse anyway, because sitting on this alone felt worse than facing her.

Stacy answered the door herself, dressed down, hair loose, and something about her expression stopped him cold before he'd even said a word. She looked lighter than she had in weeks. Almost pleased with herself.

"Donald." She stepped back to let him in, her voice warm in a way it hadn't been the last time he stood in this room. "You look like you've been up all night."

"We have a problem." He shut the door behind him, keeping his voice low out of habit even though they were alone. "The file's been altered, and there's a digital trail showing exactly when and how. If anyone pulls that audit log, it points straight back to whoever made the change."

He waited for the fear to show up on her face, the same fear he'd been carrying around in his chest for the last hour.

It didn't come.

"I wouldn't worry about that." Stacy walked past him toward the kitchen island, pouring herself a glass of water like he'd told her the weather had changed rather than that their entire plan sat one subpoena away from collapsing. "It'll work itself out."

Donald Mccallister stared at her. "Work itself out? Stacy, I just told you there's a digital trail. That's not something that works itself out, that's evidence."

"Then let it be evidence." She took a slow sip, unbothered, meeting his eyes over the rim of the glass. "I have people handling things you don't need to worry about. Just focus on your part."

"My part." Something in his chest went tight and cold. "What exactly is my part now, Stacy? Because it feels like I'm the only one in this building who doesn't know the whole plan anymore."

"Your part is staying calm." Her smile was small, private, the kind of smile that told him nothing at all except that she knew something he didn't. "You worry too much, Donald. You always have."

He studied her a long moment, searching for whatever had changed since he'd last stood in this exact spot listening to her voice crack with something close to fear. That fear was gone now, replaced by a kind of confidence that made no sense given what he'd just told her.

Which meant either she didn't understand how much danger they were actually in.

Or she understood something about this situation that he didn't.

Neither option made him feel any better as he left the penthouse that night.

Across town, Lucien Legion noticed it too, in a smaller, stranger way.

Stacy called him directly for the first time in weeks, her voice light and easy over the phone, almost playful, asking how he'd been, whether he was eating enough, whether he needed anything. No mention of the divorce. No mention of the test. Just small talk, delivered with a warmth that hadn't been in her voice since long before the paternity test ever entered either of their lives.

He hung up afterward and sat with the phone in his hand, turning the conversation over in his mind. The test results weren't even back yet, not officially, and yet Stacy sounded like a woman who already knew how the story was going to end and liked the ending.

That should have made him nervous. It did make him nervous. But it also told him something useful, that whatever she thought she had waiting for her, she was confident enough in it to stop fighting him in the meantime.

He was still thinking about it that night when his phone buzzed with a message from a number he didn't recognize, no name, no context, just a single image attached.

Lucien opened it.

A photograph filled the screen, close up and clear, a sample label with his name printed across it, a collection date, and an intake number stamped in the corner.

It was the original label. And the number printed on it did not match the number on the paperwork Ridgeline had sent home with him.