My Arrogant Business Partner Bet Me $100 I Couldn't Hit a Target — Until My Old ID Card and Scar Exposed Who I Really Was to My Estranged Son
Two weeks later, the plain brown envelope arrived at Leo’s apartment. It bore the GeneView Diagnostics logo, small and discreet, almost easy to miss. He picked it up from his mailbox with a thud in his chest, his hands suddenly unsteady. He’d been replaying the look on my face at the shooting range, the way I’d revealed that scar. He’d been remembering Julian’s casual dismissal of my past, the way he’d always avoided answering questions about Leo’s own father.
He ripped open the envelope, the paper crinkling loudly in the quiet room. Inside, a single sheet of official-looking paper. His eyes scanned it, searching.
“Paternity Test Results.”
His name. My name: Marcus Holloway.
And then, the number. Bolded. Unmistakable.
**”Probability of Paternity: 99.9%.”**
The air left Leo’s lungs in a rush. He stumbled backward, collapsing onto his worn armchair. It was true. All of it. The faint memory of his mother’s voice, a quiet sorrow when Julian had told him his father died in a faraway country decades ago. The old black-and-white photograph in her lockbox, the one with the man who had the same distinctive burn scar as me.
It wasn’t just a scar anymore. It was proof.
The lies crashed down around him, a lifetime of carefully constructed deception. He saw Julian’s face, heard his patronizing tone, understood the motive behind every dismissive comment about my past.
His mother, Amelia, had inherited a significant share of the Croft family’s original property holdings before the business even started. Those shares, after her death, would have been his. But Julian, with his smooth words and calculated manipulations, had convinced everyone that Leo’s “true” father was long gone, ensuring that the property—and by extension, the business—remained firmly under the Croft name. Without a known paternal claim, it was easier to control him. To control *everything*.
Leo remembered fragments: hushed conversations, my mother’s occasional, lingering looks at the scar in the photograph. Julian’s quick, insistent redirection whenever Leo asked about his father. The way Julian had taken over managing Amelia’s “estate” so completely.
He stood up, the official document clutched in his hand. The truth was a physical weight, heavier than any lie he’d ever believed. He wasn’t just an apprentice searching for answers; he was a son, systematically lied to, for greed.
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