2026-09-11 20:28:52The man crossed the waiting area and lowered himself into the seat across from Lucien Legion without asking permission, setting the leather folder neatly on his knee.
"Mr. Legion. I'm Donald Mccallister." His voice was smooth, practiced, the kind of voice that had spent years smoothing over other people's problems. "I represent Stacy. She wasn't able to make it today, so she asked me to speak with you directly." Lucien Legion studied him for a moment, arms crossed. "Of course she sent someone else. Wouldn't want to get her hands dirty." Donald Mccallister's mouth curved into something professionally patient, the kind of smile that never quite touched his eyes. "It's not like that, Mr. Legion. She's dealing with a lot right now, as I'm sure you understand." "Sure." Lucien Legion's tone stayed flat. "Must be exhausting, being falsely accused of nothing." Donald Mccallister let that one slide off him without reacting, opening the folder on his lap and pulling out a single sheet. "Stacy would like an independent test run, through a lab of her own choosing. She's requesting a DNA sample from you to make that happen." Lucien Legion raised an eyebrow. "Three labs already told her the same thing. What's a fourth going to prove." "Peace of mind, maybe." Donald Mccallister's tone softened slightly, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. "You have to understand how this looks from her side. Sixteen years of marriage, and suddenly you're handing her divorce papers over a test she never got to see run herself. Wouldn't you want the same courtesy, if the roles were reversed?" Lucien Legion said nothing for a moment, jaw working. "Can I ask you something, Mr. Legion." Donald Mccallister tilted his head slightly, watching him with the kind of careful attention that felt less like curiosity and more like fishing. "What actually brought this on? Sixteen years, and then all of a sudden you're running paternity tests behind her back. That doesn't come from nowhere." Lucien Legion exhaled slowly, staring down at his own hands. "I saw a case at the hospital a few months back. Father raised a kid for over a decade, found out through a routine blood match during surgery that the kid wasn't biologically his. Whole family fell apart overnight." He shook his head slightly. "Something about it stuck with me. Made me think about things I probably should have thought about a long time ago." "That's it?" Donald Mccallister's brow lifted just slightly. "A random case at work?" "Not just that." Lucien Legion's voice dropped, something tightening behind his ribs. "Chloe said something to me a while back. Just blurted it out during an argument, the way kids do when they're mad. She said, you're not even my real dad." Donald Mccallister's expression didn't shift much, but his eyes sharpened, just barely. "Kids say things like that when they're upset, Mr. Legion. It doesn't mean anything." "She laughed it off five minutes later." Lucien Legion's jaw tightened. "Told me she didn't mean it, that it just slipped out because she was mad about her curfew. I let it go at the time." His eyes lifted to meet Donald Mccallister's. "But it never really left me. Kept sitting in the back of my head like a splinter. Eventually I couldn't ignore it anymore." "I'm sure it was nothing." Donald Mccallister's voice took on a smoothing tone again, almost too quick. "Teenagers say all kinds of things they don't mean. You know how they are at that age." "Maybe." Lucien Legion watched him closely now, something in his gut starting to prickle. "Funny thing though. You keep telling me there's some misunderstanding here. That Stacy never cheated, that the test has to be wrong, that it's all some big mistake." His eyes narrowed slightly. "But you haven't once asked me what the actual results were. Haven't asked which lab, what percentage, none of it. You just keep defending her like you already know exactly what I'm going to say before I say it." For the first time, something flickered across Donald Mccallister's face, gone almost as fast as it appeared, but Lucien Legion caught it. A tightening around the eyes. A half second too long before the smile came back into place. "I'm just doing my job, Mr. Legion." Donald Mccallister's voice stayed even, though his fingers had gone still on the folder in his lap. "Trying to keep this civil for everyone involved." "Sure." Lucien Legion leaned back in his chair, watching him with new focus now, the kind of focus he usually saved for reading a patient's chart when something didn't add up. "You work closely with her. Have for years, right?" "I manage most of her business affairs, yes." "Then you'd know the people around her. Who she talks to. Who she's close with." Lucien Legion kept his voice level, almost casual, though his pulse had picked up. Donald Mccallister's smile flickered, just slightly strained now. "I know plenty of people around her, Mr. Hale. Doesn't mean I know everything about her personal life." "Funny you'd draw that line so fast." Lucien Legion's eyes didn't leave his face. "Nobody asked you to." Donald Mccallister shifted slightly in his seat, adjusting the folder on his knee, his composure holding but something underneath it clearly cracking at the edges. "I think we're getting a little off track here. The sample, Mr. Legion. Can we arrange that?" Lucien Legion ignored the question completely, leaning forward instead, his voice dropping low and direct. "Donald Mccallister." "Yes?" Lucien Legion held his gaze steady, watching every flicker that crossed the other man's face."Do you know who Chloe's biological father might be?"
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92: Old Scandal
The reporter did not leave a message the first time. She simply called, asked whether she was speaking to Lucien Legion, and disconnected when he confirmed it.The second call came twenty minutes later.Lucien was standing beside a workbench at Vale Industrial, reviewing the final inspection notes for the contract he had signed the previous afternoon. His phone vibrated against the metal surface. The number was unfamiliar, but he answered.“Mr. Legion? My name is Vanessa Cole. I’m a journalist with The Daily Ledger. I’m preparing a feature about your recent engineering contract, and I’d appreciate a few minutes of your time.”Lucien glanced at the technician waiting across from him. “You can send your questions to the company’s communications office.”“I can, but there’s another part of your story that readers may find relevant.”“Then it probably isn’t about engineering.”There was a brief pause. “It concerns your divorce from actress Stacy Legion. And the child you’re reportedly exp
91: Contracts
Lucien arrived at Vale Industrial’s technical offices ten minutes before the scheduled meeting, carrying a folder of notes that had been marked, corrected, and reorganized twice on the journey.He had considered wearing his only suit. It had been pressed carefully the night before, but the shoulders no longer sat quite right, and the jacket carried the faint signs of years spent in storage between occasions that had never come. In the end, he chose a clean charcoal shirt and dark trousers. He would not pretend to be someone he wasn’t. If the company wanted his mind, he would give them that.At reception, a woman in a navy jacket checked his name against a list. Her eyes flickered briefly toward his hands, where a thin line of grease remained beneath one fingernail despite his efforts to scrub it away.“Mr. Legion, they’re expecting you. Please take the lift to the fourth floor.”No one smirked. No one asked whether he had come to repair a company car. The ordinary courtesy unsettled h
90: The Threat
The photograph lay on Clarice’s kitchen table long after the room had gone quiet.Lucien stood in the picture outside the engineering workshop, his sleeves pushed to his elbows and a dark smudge of grease crossing one wrist. He was looking toward someone beyond the frame, his expression unguarded in a way Clarice had rarely seen. Beneath it, the message had been typed in plain black letters.He will be your weakness.Clarice had read it so many times that the words had begun to blur. The threat was not loud. It did not need to be. Whoever had sent it knew enough about her to understand that Lucien had become more than a man helping her through a difficult season. He had become someone whose safety mattered to her in a way she could no longer dismiss.When Lucien returned from washing his hands, he found her still staring at the photograph.“You haven’t moved,” he said.Clarice looked up. “I’ve been thinking.”“That usually means you’ve decided to carry the whole world alone.”“Not the
89: The Answer
Clarice’s question remained between them long after she asked it.“Are you afraid of loving another child?”Lucien did not answer immediately. His gaze had settled on the open notebook on the table, on the neat rows of appointments and practical necessities he had written down as if careful planning could protect everyone involved. The room was quiet except for the low hum of the refrigerator and the distant sound of traffic beyond the windows.“You don’t have to answer me,” she said.“I do.”He finally looked at her. There was no anger in his expression, only exhaustion and a kind of reluctant honesty.“Yes,” he said. “I’m afraid.”Clarice’s fingers tightened around the edge of the cushion. She had expected him to deny it, or to offer a carefully measured explanation that made fear sound like a temporary inconvenience. She had not expected the answer to come so plainly.“Because of Chloe?” she asked.“Because of what happened with Chloe. Because I spent years believing that being the
88: Pregnancy Changes Everything
The first thing Lucien Legion bought for his unborn child was a thermometer.Not a gold-plated crib. Not a designer stroller with a price tag that could have covered several months of rent. Not one of the extravagant gifts Clarice’s family seemed to believe could solve every problem money had ever caused.A thermometer.He stood in the pharmacy aisle, comparing two brands with the seriousness of a man reviewing engineering specifications. One had a larger display. The other had better reviews and a protective case. He read both labels, checked the warranty, then put the cheaper one in his basket.The pharmacist watched him with faint amusement. “First baby?”Lucien’s hand paused on the basket handle.“Yes,” he answered after a moment. “My first biological child.”The distinction escaped before he could stop it. The pharmacist’s expression softened, but Lucien did not invite sympathy. He paid, folded the receipt into his wallet, and left with a small paper bag that seemed almost absurd
87: His Fear
Edwin Lincoln did not return to his car immediately after Chloe left the café.He stood beside the window with one hand resting on the back of the chair she had occupied, watching her disappear into the afternoon crowd. The conversation kept replaying in fragments: her steady voice, the questions she had asked without raising it, the way she had looked at him as if she were trying to decide whether there was anything worth saving in him.He had expected anger. He had even prepared himself for tears. Anger could be answered with patience, and tears could be met with a carefully chosen apology. What he had not expected was that quiet, unmistakable disappointment.Chloe had not come looking for a famous director. She had come looking for the father who had allowed another man to raise her.And Edwin had failed her again.His phone vibrated in his pocket. A message from his assistant appeared on the screen, asking whether he was still attending the evening production meeting. Edwin ignore
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