Chapter 4 - The House of Cards
Seventy-two hours later, the illusion of Ethan’s perfect new life shattered completely.
He sat in a stark, sterile consulting room in a private clinic on the other side of town. The doctor across from him, an older man with kind but serious eyes, pushed a single sheet of paper across the desk.
“Mr. Hayes, I’ve run the tests twice to be absolutely certain,” the doctor said gently. “The results are conclusive.”
Ethan stared at the paper. The medical jargon blurred, but the bottom line was highlighted in bold black ink.
Azoospermia. Zero sperm count.
“What does this mean?” Ethan choked out, his throat suddenly completely dry. He felt a cold sweat breaking out on the back of his neck. “Is it treatable? Is this recent?”
The doctor sighed softly. “Mr. Hayes, based on your hormone panels and genetic markers, this is a congenital condition. You were born with a structural anomaly. Your body does not, and has never, produced viable sperm. I am incredibly sorry to be the one to tell you this, but you are completely sterile. You have always been sterile.”
The walls of the room seemed to close in on Ethan. The air was suddenly too thick to breathe.
You have always been sterile.
If he had always been sterile, then the three years of agonizing fertility treatments he had forced Claire to endure were entirely his fault. He had watched her inject herself with hormones, cry on bathroom floors, and blame her own body, all while he secretly felt a smug, silent superiority.
But far worse than the guilt was the immediate, terrifying mathematical certainty that slammed into his brain.
He had always been sterile.
Madison had given birth to a child a year ago.
The baby isn't mine.
Ethan drove home in a state of absolute dissociation. He didn't remember the traffic, he didn't remember parking the car. He walked through the heavy oak front doors of his mansion just as Madison was coming down the sweeping staircase, bouncing little Leo on her hip. She was smiling, holding up a new silver rattle.
“Look who’s awake, Daddy!” Madison cooed, trying desperately to pretend the tension of the last three days hadn't existed.
Ethan stood in the foyer, staring up at them. He looked at the baby. He looked at the shape of the boy's eyes, the curve of his nose. For a year, Ethan had convinced himself he saw his own reflection in that child. Now, all he saw was a stranger. An intruder.
“Pack your bags,” Ethan said. His voice wasn't a yell; it was a deadly, quiet hiss that echoed off the marble floors.
Madison’s smile froze. “What? Ethan, what are you talking about?”
He reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out the crumpled medical report, and threw it. It fluttered in the air for a second before landing on the stairs halfway between them.
May you like
“I am sterile, Madison. I have been sterile since the day I was born,” Ethan said, his voice finally beginning to shake with an ungodly rage. “So you have exactly one hour to tell me whose bastard child you are holding, before I throw both of you out onto the street.”
Madison dropped the silver rattle. It clattered down the wooden stairs, a loud, chaotic noise that signaled the end of her reign. She sank to her knees right there on the steps, clutching the baby, and began to sob uncontrollably. The house of cards had officially collapsed.
