I cheated on my wife to take care of my mistress’s pregnancy.

It wasn’t a text. It was an incoming call from an unknown, private number.

I picked it up, my voice sounding like broken glass. “Hello?”

“Ray,” Lucy’s voice came through the speaker. She sounded calm. Serene. Completely detached from the storm that was obliterating my existence.

“Lucy… Lucy, please,” I sobbed, tears finally spilling over my eyelids. “I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry. I was blind. I was an idiot. They ruined me, Lucy. They took everything. But your test… the photo you sent… how? If I’m sterile… how are you pregnant?”

There was a long, agonizing pause on the other end of the line. The only sound was the distant hum of an airport terminal in the background.

“I know you’re sterile, Ray. I’ve known for years,” Lucy said softly.

“Then… whose baby is it?” I whispered, my heart freezing solid.

“Do you remember the night you slammed the door and told me I was bitter and useless?” Lucy’s voice dropped to a chilling, razor-sharp whisper. “I realized that night that I had spent eight years protecting a man who would gladly crush my soul to save his pride. So, I decided it was time to take my own revenge. I decided to give you exactly what you wanted—a real, biological Mendez heir. But since you couldn’t provide the DNA…”

A cold sweat broke out across my neck. A terrifying, sickening realization began to crawl up my spine. Mendez heir.

“Lucy… what did you do?”

“I didn’t have to look very far, Ray. Your father’s heart attack wasn’t caused by the stress of your affair,” Lucy whispered, a dark, triumphant edge finally bleeding into her tone. “It was caused by the guilt of what he and I did in this very house while you were away in Miami with Valerie. He wanted to tell you the truth before he died. But I told him it would kill him faster.”

My breath hitched. The room began to spin violently. My father? My own father?

“And right now,” Lucy continued, her voice fading as an announcement for a flight to Madrid echoed in her background, “David is waiting outside your house. He knows you found the envelope. He knows you know everything. And he isn’t alone, Ray. He brought the people he owes that five million dollars to… and they know you don’t have the money anymore.”

Before I could even scream, the heavy wooden front door downstairs shattered open with a deafening crash. Heavy, hurried footsteps began to pound up the stairs toward my study.TO BE CONTINUED IN PART 3