Chapter 3 - The Gala at Les NomadesWhile Dr. Vance’s team drew twelve vials of blood from my arm in the secondary lab, the storm outside the cardiology center turned into a violent Midwestern squall.
At 9:30 p.m., two broad-shouldered men in dark raincoats pushed open the heavy glass doors of the hospital lobby.
It was my father, Charles Mitchell, and my mother, Evelyn Mitchell. Behind them stepped Amelia Brooks, wearing a floor-length emerald silk evening gown, her hair styled in soft waves, her face flushed with furious, humiliated rage.
The grand proposal party at Les Nomades had been ruined. Fifty high-society guests had been left sitting at white-linen tables while the heir to the Mitchell empire vanished without a word.
"Ryan!" my mother's sharp, piercing voice echoed across the quiet lobby as her designer heels clicked furiously against the tile. "What is the meaning of this absolute insanity?! Amelia has been weeping for two hours! Your father had to explain to twenty judges and senators that you had an 'emergency'!"
Charles Mitchell—a sixty-two-year-old corporate titan whose gray hair and severe jawline usually commanded entire financial sectors—marched up to me, his face red with outrage.
"You shut off your phone, Ryan!" Charles barked, pointing a finger at my chest. "You left your betrothed standing in a five-star restaurant! Do you have any idea what this does to the Mitchell-Brooks merger stock valuations tomorrow morning?!"
I stood near the reception desk, wearing my simple white dress shirt with the sleeves rolled up, a cotton bandage taped over the crook of my elbow where the donor blood vials had just been drawn.
I didn't yell. I didn't raise my hands.
The cold, absolute, deadly stillness that washed over my gray-blue eyes made my father’s finger freeze in mid-air.
"Where is she, Ryan?" Amelia demanded, stepping forward, her emerald silk gown rustling, her voice laced with a toxic, condescending sneer. "The nurses at the desk said you were here with that librarian girl! Did she call you with another fake sob story to extort money from your family?!"
PAK!
The sound wasn't a slap. It was the sound of my heavy leather wallet slamming flat onto the marble reception desk.
I reached into my pocket, pulled out the velvet box containing the four-carat diamond ring, and set it right next to the wallet.
"Take the ring, Amelia," I spoke. My deep baritone dropped into a quiet, razor-sharp whisper that cut through the lobby like an iron blade. "And get out of my sight before I have security throw you out into the rain."
Amelia’s jaw sagged open in complete, speech-bound horror. "Ryan...! What did you just say to me?!"
"Ryan!" my mother shrieked, clutching her pearl necklace. "Have you completely lost your mind?! That girl ruined your life three years ago! She was a nobody! A low-class librarian who dragged our name through the gutter!"
"She didn't ruin my life, Mother," I revealed, stepping two inches from my mother's pale face, my storm-gray eyes burning with an absolute, terrifying fire. "She carried three of my children in secret while you handed her divorce papers in my living room."
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My father went rigid. His bloodshot eyes bulged out of his head as he stared at me. "Children...?"
"Triplets," I announced flatly, every word dropped into the quiet hospital lobby like a heavy block of cold iron. "Three three-year-old children. My blood. The Mitchell bloodline you claim to care so much about."
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