Chapter 15 - The DNA Truth
The next forty-eight hours were a period of absolute, agonizing torture for Mark and his wife.
Mark and Emily sat on their living room sofa in complete silence, holding hands so tightly their fingers actually went numb.
Hope was asleep peacefully in Emily's arms, completely unaware of the massive storm that was about to tear their family apart once again.
Sarah had rushed the stolen pacifier to a highly trusted, discreet private laboratory in the city.
She had paid triple the standard processing fee to completely expedite the DNA sequence matching against Mark and Emily's blood samples.
When the front door finally unlocked, Sarah walked into the house looking like she had not slept in several days.
She didn't say a single word as she walked over to the coffee table and placed a thick manila envelope down in front of them.
Mark tore the envelope open with shaking hands, his panicked eyes scanning rapidly past the dense scientific jargon.
He finally reached the official conclusion printed in bold, undeniable letters at the very bottom of the page.
The probability of paternity was listed at exactly 99.99 percent, and the probability of maternity was identically matched.
Emily let out a shattered, agonizing cry, burying her wet face into Hope's soft, dark hair.
She cried for the beautiful daughter she had lost, the baby who was violently stolen from her womb while she lay unconscious on an operating table.
She cried for the sheer, unimaginable trauma their family had endured over the last six months.
And she cried for Hope, the sweet, innocent little girl they had fallen completely in love with, who technically belonged to no one at all.
Mark pulled both his devastated wife and the sleeping baby into his arms, kissing the top of Emily's head as silent tears streamed down his own face.
But the overwhelming sorrow quickly morphed into a burning, highly dangerous anger that settled deep in his gut.
Mark looked up at Sarah, fiercely demanding to know their next move to get their child back.
He wanted to storm the Sterling estate with the local police, kick down the heavy doors, and take his daughter back by force.
Sarah sternly reminded him that the DNA test, while absolute proof to them, was completely inadmissible in any court of law because it was obtained illegally.
If they went to the authorities now, Sterling would easily use his diplomatic power to have the DNA test thrown out entirely.
Mark would be immediately arrested for trespassing and theft, and Sterling would vanish across international borders with the baby.
Sarah explained that there was only one viable way to defeat a powerful man who possessed absolute diplomatic immunity.
They could not attack him legally through the broken justice system; they had to attack him publicly in the media.
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They needed to boldly back Alexander Sterling into a corner so tight that his home country would be heavily forced to revoke his immunity to save their own political reputation.
They needed to start a ruthless war in the press, but to do that, they needed undeniable proof that Sterling knew the baby was stolen when he bought her.
