Chapter 5 - The Web of Lies
Madeline’s eyes scanned the medical document. Her face went from flushed with anger to a sickly, pale green.
"This... this is a lie," she whispered, her hands starting to tremble. "A cheap hospital trick."
"It's science, Mom," Brandon said, his voice dropping to a whisper of sheer disbelief. "The hospital compared Luke's DNA to mine. They found out he is a direct descendant of my father, Richard Harlan. But I am not. Which means..."
Brandon looked at his mother as if seeing her for the very first time.
"You cheated on my father," Brandon said, the pieces of the puzzle falling into place. "You had an affair, got pregnant with me, and passed me off as Richard’s son to secure your inheritance of the Harlan estate. And when Richard died, you made sure no one would ever question it."
"No... no, Richard loved me!" Madeline cried, backing away toward the door.
"But Richard had a brother," I added, remembering the old family photo album we had found in the attic. "An identical twin brother, Thomas, who disappeared from the family records thirty years ago. The family always said he ran away. But he didn't, did he?"
The room was silent as the truth hung in the air.
Madeline had slept with her husband’s identical twin brother. When she got pregnant with Brandon, she panicked. To keep the family fortune, she kept the secret buried. But because she knew the truth, she lived in constant, paranoid fear that her secret would be discovered.
When Luke was born, she looked at him and saw the face of the Harlan twin she had betrayed. She convinced herself that I must have cheated on Brandon, projecting her own guilt, her own sins, onto an innocent four-year-old boy. She had tried to destroy my son's place in the family to protect the golden lie she had lived for three decades.
"You are a monster," Brandon said, tears finally spilling over his eyelashes. "You nearly let my son die today because you couldn't face your own reflection."
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"Brandon, please," Madeline begged, reaching out a trembling, gold-adorned hand. "Everything I did, I did to keep the Harlan name clean! To keep the wealth for you!"
"The wealth?" Brandon laughed bitterly. "You can keep it. Because starting today, we are changing our last name. My son and my wife will never carry the name of a liar."
