Chapter 21
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
ISLA
The words landed like a bomb on my head, and my entire body froze.
“It needed to be done,” Julius added, looking at me with so much anguish in his eyes.
The door opened before I could respond. The doctor stepped back in, holding a white envelope. The cautious expression on his face told me that whatever we were about to hear was going to destroy us in ways we might never recover from.
My heart dropped into my stomach, aware this wasn’t going to end well.
Is it Julius or Kraven? Who do I want it to be?
The doctor tore through my thoughts. “Isla,” he informed in a tone that made my mouth dry.
“I have the preliminary results of your paternity test.”
Everything in the room catapulted as if we were in the waves of the ocean, just hanging on for dear life. I could feel both of them beside me now, closer than before. Almost like they were magnets being pulled toward the same point, neither willing to give the other any space.
I was once again at the center of it all.
Finding my voice, I barely steadied it. “What does that mean?”
The doctor hesitated for a second. “It means there was a complication with the comparison.”
I shook my head, trying to follow along. “I don’t understand.”
“Well,” he accentuated the word. “The samples that were provided for your paternity test.” He looked at Kraven and then at Julius, and I wondered how much they had told him.
This was the mic drop moment for us all when he said, “There’s no familial match between the two men.”
The words didn’t register for any of us. “No… what?” I asked, my eyebrows pinching together. I was confused about where he was going with this.
“What I’m trying to say is…” He was obviously weighing his words.
Maybe trying to figure out how to make us understand what he was telling us.
The whole world stopped moving the second he explained, “The samples provided for the paternity test are not biologically related.”
Silence.
There was complete, total silence. It was devastating…
Fucking silence.
JULIUS
My stare instantly shifted to Kraven, really looking at him for the first time since all of this started.
I could see it. Aware he could feel it. I didn’t look like Melody or Joe, he did.
It was the same realization I just had, the same dangerous understanding of what this implied and the consequences.
This should have made things clearer, simpler, and more efficient, yet it didn’t. It was much worse than anything I could have ever imagined. Except I never for one second contemplated this. Kraven didn’t move. I didn’t think he was even breathing.
I glanced at Isla next. She was staring straight ahead, trying to process what this meant for all of us, while I tried to rebuild my entire existence with this new information that was nothing short of earth-shattering.
We’re not brothers.
The statement repeated itself in my head with no end in sight. It was loud, louder than the hospital machines, louder than my own heartbeat, louder than the fear sitting heavy on my chest, making it hard to breathe. It was louder than the love I feel for him.
For her.
We’re not brothers.
Suddenly, I was hit with the exhaustion of being the one who always had to hold everything together. My life, Kraven’s, Isla’s, my whole existence and identity was based on being the older brother. I took care of him and provided for him. I was his only family.
We’re not brothers.
I didn’t move, didn’t speak, didn’t even breathe the same. If I did, if I let anything slip, if I let go of the control I had to have, I wouldn’t survive it. My mind was protecting my body from itself. I couldn’t snap, or else there’d be nothing left of me.
Nothing left for her.
For him.
For this baby.
Was I the dad?
My entire life, everything I’d done. Every decision. Every sacrifice. Every line I crossed and justified because he was my brother…
It was built on something that didn’t exist.
We’re not brothers.
“That’s…” I let out a slow breath, dragging my hand over my mouth, buying myself a second, just one second to figure out how to stand there without utterly dismantling. “That’s not possible.”
Neither of them answered. It was possible, making it worse.
Is that why Melody came back? To tell us the truth? Does Joe know? Who the hell are my real parents? Where are they?
“I have the paperwork here. You can take a look for yourself.” He handed Isla the envelope. “The paternity results are also in there, and I’ll let you open them at your leisure.”
We all stared at the envelope as if it were magically going to grow legs and walk off.
“I’m going to give you all some privacy.” The doctor walked to the door and left, shutting it behind him.
I didn’t falter, rasping, “I raised you.” The words tasted like vinegar on their way out. I looked at Kraven again. “Do you understand that? I raised you.”
His expression mirrored mine. “I know.”
“I built my entire life around you,” I spewed, louder now, not yelling but close. My control thinned at the edges in a way I couldn’t fully hide anymore. “Every choice I’ve ever made… every fucked-up thing I justified for you… it was because you were my responsibility.”
“Julius.” His arms raised in a gesture of surrender. “I know.”
I laughed, but it came out wrong. It was hollow, like it didn’t belong in my chest. “You’re not my brother.”
The words felt like glass in my mouth, and I hated them. There was nothing left to anchor, nothing left to fight for. Maybe it was shock, maybe it was loss, or maybe it was just defeat, but I couldn’t think straight. I could barely see.
KRAVEN
I didn’t expect any of this. Especially the devastated expression on Julius’s face. I expected him to come at me the way he always did when something changed too far out of his control.
The way his voice cracked without actually breaking. The way he kept talking like if he stopped, he wouldn’t be able to start again. The way he looked at me like he didn’t recognize me anymore. It hit harder than anything he’d ever said to me.
“I didn’t know.” I didn’t have anything else to say—no words of reassurance, no perfect explanation, no excuses for Melody or Joe.
I had nothing.
I couldn’t fix this.
The only thing I could do was spill more truth. “Julius, that doesn’t change what we are.”
He shook his head. “It changes everything.”
“No, it doesn’t,” I urged, stepping forward without thinking, closing the space between us.
I couldn’t stand the distance that was already forming there. The wall that he was already building, the way he was pulling away as if he didn’t want to look at me anymore. Like he didn’t want to look at me ever again because it hurt him too much.
Julius sacrificed his entire life for me, but just because we weren’t blood related, it didn’t mean we weren’t family. I needed him to understand that. The only thing that changed was our DNA. We already knew Joe and Melody were trash, but fuck… this put a whole different spin on it.
Is that why they left? Is that why they chose Julius to raise me?
There were hundreds of questions we’d never get answered.
Did Joe even know the truth? How could he keep something this huge from us? Is that why she came back? Is that why she OD’d?
I couldn’t keep up with the turmoil, knowing Julius was experiencing far worse than I was.
I didn’t hold back, adding, “We grew up together. You raised me. That doesn’t just disappear because of a goddamn test, Julius. Do you understand me?”
“It does if that’s the only reason I made half the choices I did.”
“That’s bullshit, and you know it.”
“Is it?” he challenged, his eyes firmly focused on me. They were sharp and raw, completely unglued in a way I’d never seen them. “Tell me, Kraven… did you put your life on hold for me?”
I opened my mouth but quickly shut it.
“That’s what I thought,” he scoffed. “That’s what I fucking thought.”
I felt like I was watching something collapse in slow motion. It wasn’t loud or violent. It was just piece by piece, right in front of me, and I couldn’t stop it. No matter what I said, he was drowning. No life raft would save him from himself.
“Stop,” Isla’s voice was shaking. “Both of you… just stop for a second.”
Neither of us listened.
“Nothing about this makes sense.” Julius’s voice was tighter, more strained. He was trying to hold on to something already slipping from his grasp.
“Then don’t let it change everything,” I replied, praying he saw reason.
“It does change everything.”
“No, it doesn’t. You don’t just stop being what you are to me because of this.”
“And what am I?” Julius demanded. “Tell me, what am I to you now?”
The question slammed into me. There wasn’t a clean answer. There wasn’t a safe one either. I didn’t respond immediately. Instead, there was just more silence, more hesitation from everyone.
“You don’t even know,” Julius murmured, cutting deeper. It was more final. “That’s the problem.”
“I know enough,” I shot back.
“No.” Julius shook his head slowly. “You don’t.”
I couldn’t breathe right. It was the first thing I noticed. The way my chest felt too tight, how every inhale didn’t go deep enough to matter.
I was just there, trying to figure out how bad he’d crash.
“You want to know what’s fucked up?” he asked, his voice lower, more controlled, but it was about to break. “I don’t even know who I am without being your older brother.” His gaze fixated somewhere past us now. “That was my role. That was my reason. That was… everything.”
“And you think that just disappears because of some DNA?”
“I was built on something that doesn’t exist.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“I don’t know how this works anymore,” he said flatly.
“You’re still you,” Isla chimed in. She couldn’t watch him spiral without saying anything. Even if it didn’t help, she had to try, and I loved that about her. “This doesn’t change who you are inside.”
“You don’t get to say that,” he argued.
“Julius—”
“No.” He shook his head once.
“I’m not saying it’s not—”
“You are, Mouse. You’re trying to make this smaller than it is.”
“No.” I intervened. “We’re just trying to keep you from losing yourself over this.”
“This is just the tip of the iceberg. We still don’t know who the father is.”
Silence again.
It was thick, suffocating.
“You’re not losing anything.” I stepped closer to him. “I’m still right here and so is she, and so is the baby.”
“Our baby,” Isla exclaimed.
There was a filter. No restraint on her part. She said it with so much determination, so much confirmation. Like all of a sudden, the paternity of the baby didn’t matter to her, and I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel the same.
The paternity of the baby seemed so small compared to what was currently happening in Julius’s world. This didn’t change anything for me, but I wasn’t the one whose identity was rocked.
Fuck you, Joe. Fuck you, Melody. You’ll burn in hell for this shit.
I hated that I was seeing Julius in pain. I wasn’t used to it. I was usually the one inflicting it, and I guess in a way, I still was.
“There’s no fixing this when I’ve always fixed everything.”
“Julius.” I stepped closer to him. “You don’t need to fix it. It doesn’t change anything.”
“My whole life was built on a lie.”
“It wasn’t a lie. You’ll always be my brother.”
“I need air.” He abruptly moved toward the door, and I grabbed his arm, but he yanked it away.
“I’m serious,” he snapped. “I need a second before I say something I can’t take back.”
“That’s not how this works.”
“That’s exactly how this works. If I stay in this room for another minute, I’m going to break something, and I don’t mean a conversation.”
He glanced over at Isla. She was crying now. It almost made him stay, but he didn’t.
He turned and walked out.