Chapter 26:
Blackmail or Broken Truth?

The silence in the office stretched tight, heavy enough to crush lungs. Harry stood rooted behind his desk, hands clenched so hard the knuckles blanched against the brown folder still open before him - the photo of Ethan staring up, golden‑brown curls, eyes that mirrored his own, innocent and unknowing. His pulse hammered erratically in his throat, a frantic drumbeat drowning out reason.

What the hell is this? A joke? A sick, elaborate prank?

He wanted to roar it out loud, to sweep the folder onto the floor and stamp it into dust. He was Harry Lorenzo - happily, solidly married to Olivia. Olivia. His wife. The woman who had pulled him back from death, who had filled every empty space when he woke up confused and broken five years ago. She was the one he loved, the one he planned a future with, the only mother he ever imagined for his children. Not some stranger in a crumpled nurse's uniform slamming wild accusations onto expensive mahogany.

"Ms. Suarez - are you absolutely certain about what you are claiming?" Harry demanded, voice rough, sharp with rising suspicion. His gaze swept over her: dark brown hair loose and wind‑tousled, dark eyes rimmed red from sleepless nights, uniform stained faintly at the cuffs, hands trembling yet jaw set hard as stone.

Doubt tangled fast inside him, weaving a thick, protective shield. He was a billionaire, after all - CEO of Lorenzo Industries, a name that spanned boardrooms across Asia and America, bank accounts deep enough to make anyone greedy. Blackmail schemes, fake paternity claims, opportunists hunting a quick fortune... he'd learned early to guard against them. Maybe this woman was just another grifter, capitalising on rumours of his past, crafting a convincing story and medical papers to bleed him dry.

Kathalina threw her head back, a bitter, broken laugh bursting from her chest - no humour in it, only years of swallowed hurt. She leaned forward, palms flat against the desk, leaning into his space until he could smell antiseptic mixed with vanilla and rain, something achingly familiar that pricked behind his eyes.

"I am bloody positive about it," she bit out, every word edged with steel, tears threatening but held back by sheer will. "For a long time I lived under the same illusion - that you loved me. That what we shared meant something more than just fun." Her voice cracked, dropped into raw accusation. "But you only used me, didn't you? Got what you wanted, then tossed me aside like a rag doll when you were bored or when something shinier caught your eye."

Harry opened his mouth to argue, to deny, to shout her down - yet nothing came out. The air seemed sucked from the room, replaced by a strange, throbbing ache deep behind his forehead and in the hollow of his chest. Her words struck chords he didn't know existed, vibrating through bones and blood. His mind raced, desperate to analyse, dismantle, disprove... but the harder he tried, the blanker the spaces grew.

Then it happened - faint at first, then rushing in sharp and vivid like old film reel projected too bright: flashes of laughter under streetlights, rain dripping on bare arms, his hand curled tight around hers, a wide, boyish grin on his own face as he pulled her close. He recognised the girl in those fragments instantly: dark brown hair, bright eyes, the same curve of jaw as the woman standing before him now.

It's me. It's her.

The revelation stabbed like a hot iron straight through his skull, pain radiating outward in jagged pulses, making him sway where he stood. His heart hammered faster than it ever had - faster than during crisis meetings, faster than in the moments before surgery, faster even than the fear he'd felt waking from coma. This sensation was nothing like the steady, comfortable love he knew with Olivia. This was wild, untamed, terrifying - a storm he didn't know how to weather.

"I... I don't know you," he forced out, the words tasting like ash. He kept his gaze locked on hers, seeing right through to the exhaustion and fury beneath, as if she was staring into his soul and finding it empty. "Who the hell are you? I don't understand - I remember nothing! Tell me!"

The shout tore loose from his throat, bouncing off high ceilings and glass walls, loud and raw with rising panic. The shock of Ethan's existence, the possibility of lies layered over his life, the phantom memories that hurt to see - it was too much, too fast, turning his ordered world upside‑down. He'd never imagined anything like this could creep into his life, not now, not ever.

Kathalina flinched and stumbled a step backward, her fierce expression crumbling into open disbelief, brows drawn tight, mouth falling slightly open. She shook her head slowly, as though trying to clear a ringing sound from her ears.

"Are you kidding me, Harry?" Her tone rose, sharp and incredulous. "Is this just some sick, heartless joke you play now?"

"This is no joke, Ms. Suarez," Harry snapped back, sarcasm sharpening his voice even while his insides twisted with unease. Every denial felt thin, hollow, wrong - like trying to hold back floodwaters with bare hands. Something is wrong, the quiet voice inside whispered, growing louder. Something huge, something missing, something you must uncover. And the only person who could answer - the only person who knew every corner of his life, his past, his supposed truth - was Olivia. His wife.

Kathalina stared at him, tears finally spilling over and tracking clean lines through the dust and weariness on her cheeks. She let out a shaky breath, voice dropping to a raw, trembling intensity.

"You don't know me? Then what happened to 'I love you, trust me - I'll fight for you no matter what'?" She quoted the old promise perfectly, her tone scathing and broken. "Huh, Har? I waited for you that night - stood in the pouring rain until my bones ached - because I believed every word. But you fooled me! Strung me along, used my heart and my body, then vanished like I never existed the moment you got exactly what you wanted!"

She swiped angrily at her tears with the back of one hand, chest heaving with suppressed sobs and rage, before straightening sharply, regaining that steely resolve she wore like armour. Her gaze hardened again, stripping him bare.

"I didn't come here to drag you through the past or interrogate you over old hurts - truth is, I don't care about us anymore. I'm only here for my son. That's all." She jabbed a finger toward Ethan's photo. "Don't play dumb or cruel games with me, Harry. Deep down, you know me. And you know I'd never step foot near you again, never look you in the eye or speak your name, if my boy wasn't dying."

Silence rushed back in, thick and suffocating. Harry watched every shift of her posture, every tremor in her shoulders, the way she hugged herself tight as if fighting off cold. Every movement, every angle of her face, the tilt of her head, the way she bit her lip when stressed - all screamed familiarity, like a song hummed half‑remembered. Yet memory stayed locked behind thick, unyielding walls, sealed shut by trauma and time.

"Harry," she pressed, voice firmer now, urgent and pleading all at once. "Your son needs you right now - his blood tests, his doctors, his life hanging by a thread. I am not daring to face you again after everything you did to me... not unless there was no other choice. And there isn't."

Harry raised both hands, palms outward in surrender, breath catching as pain surged again, sharp and blinding behind his eyes. He tried to speak calmly, rationally, to explain the gaping holes in his mind, to make sense of it all.

"I am truly sorry - I swear I don't understand. I don't know you, I have no memory of who you are or what we were." He pressed fingers hard against his temples, pressure doing nothing to dull the throbbing ache. "Maybe... maybe this is why. Five years ago I was in a terrible car accident. Woke up weeks later from coma with large parts of my past completely gone - wiped clean." His voice wavered, confession tumbling out. "If I had known I fathered a child, truly known... I would never run away from my responsibility. I would never abandon him."

A sharp, agonising groan tore free as his eyes squeezed shut, and suddenly the floodgates burst open - memories rushed in chaotic, blinding bursts: bright headlights skidding across wet asphalt, Olivia's face leaning over him in the hospital, laughter and tears and Kathalina's voice echoing down empty corridors, golden‑brown curls bouncing as a toddler ran, rain, promises, lies tangled together until he couldn't tell which were real.

"Harry! Harry, are you alright? What's wrong?"

Kathalina's voice cut through the rising fog, sharp and alarmed, distance warping as the room span around him.

"My head... it hurts..." Harry barely breathed the words, knees buckling, vision fading rapidly into grey then deep, absolute blackness, the world dissolving completely away beneath his feet.