"Everything you fought for, every scheme, every alliance, every ounce of loyalty you demanded from a son you thought was yours, it was never real. He was never yours to begin with."
Violet's face drained of color. For a woman who had spent decades never once losing her composure, watching it shatter in real time was almost worse than the revelation itself.
"You're lying," she said, though her voice had no conviction left in it.
"Ask yourself why I'd bother," Wayne said. "Thirty-two years, Violet. Thirty-two years of you building your entire empire around protecting a boy who wasn't even the one I gave you to raise." He laughed, low and delighted, a man finally allowing himself the pleasure of a secret he'd carried for decades.
"I arranged for you to meet him, you know. Max. I put you exactly where I needed you, made sure you'd fall for him, made sure you'd push him to claim what he thought was rightfully his." His eyes flicked to Seron.
