Chapter 4
“Who… who are they?”
Ava stared at the two filthy, homeless-looking boys who’d just shuffled in, her stomach dropping with sudden dread.
One kid was stuck in a beat-up wheelchair, his legs twisted and useless.
The other had dead, glassy eyes and kept making these weird giggling sounds while spit ran down his chin.
I couldn’t help but smirk. “Them? Those are YOUR precious sons with Theodore.”
Theodore’s face went purple with rage.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?! You seriously dragged in some random homeless kids to screw with me?”
I ignored his tantrum and gestured toward the boys.
“Take a good look, Theodore. Don’t you think they’ve got Ava’s eyes?”
You know what they say-boys usually look like their moms.
Sure, their faces were caked with dirt, but anyone with half a brain could see they were dead ringers for Ava.
Ava was falling apart but still trying to play it cool.
“Harper, what kind of sick game are you playing?”
I settled back in my chair and crossed my legs like I owned the place.
“Gabriel and Raphael? They’re mine. My biological sons.”
“These two lovely boys here are what you’ve been waiting eighteen years for.”
Ava went white as a sheet.
“Bullshit! You’re completely making this up! I’m getting a DNA test right fucking now!”
But honestly, most people in that room had already put two and two together just looking at the faces.
I casually pulled a thick folder from my bag.
“Already got you covered. Here’s the paternity test results for Tom One, Tom Two, and Theodore. See for yourselves.”
I slid the papers across the table. Ava practically lunged for them, her hands shaking as she flipped through each page.
When she hit the final results page, she literally collapsed into her chair.
“No… no fucking way. You had to have faked this shit.”
“You’ve completely lost your mind! You’re so desperate for kids you actually forged legal documents!”
I pointed to my head. “Think for five seconds, genius. See that big red official seal? That’s from the county courthouse.”
The entire Quinn clan just sat there staring at that stamp, looking like they’d been hit by a truck.
Meanwhile, my boys finally looked like they could breathe again, quietly stepping up behind my chair.
See, when Theodore and Ava “died” in that convenient car accident, the whole thing stunk to high heaven. The way his family rushed to cremate them without even a proper funeral? I’d suspected they weren’t really dead all along.
Right after Theodore’s supposed “death,” I found out I was pregnant-with twins, no less.
That’s when I hatched my little plan.
I played the grieving widow and volunteered to raise those poor orphaned boys.
Then I took all four kids and disappeared to some tiny farm town, claiming I needed space to heal.
Didn’t come back for two whole years-and when I did, I had my twin boys with me.
Everyone just assumed they were Theodore’s bastard children from his affair.
Hell, even my own parents bought the story.
They thought I’d lost my damn mind, my friends called me a doormat for raising a mistress’s kids.
But I didn’t give a shit what anyone thought, because every single day for eighteen years, I was working toward this exact moment.
