Page 13 of Lone Star Hostage

“Tate Harrington, his lawyer,” Olivia supplied.

Judging from the stink-eye Jesep was aiming at Presley and her, he seemed to believe the call would intimidate them.

Not a chance.

She turned to Presley to see what their next move should be, but before she could say anything, his phone rang. Of course, that amped up the adrenaline because her first thought was this was the kidnapper.

It wasn’t.

“It’s Ruby,” he relayed to her in a whisper, and he motioned for her to follow him out of the office. He didn’t answer the call until they were on the other side of the reception area.

“You heard from the kidnappers?” Presley immediately asked when he answered. He didn’t put the call on speaker, but Billie moved in close enough so she could hear what his boss had to say.

“No, the lab,” Ruby corrected. And she paused a long time. “I don’t know what it means yet, but the tech just told me that there’s a familial match in the database to Victoria’s DNA.”

Billie’s forehead bunched up because that didn’t seem like a big deal. It was probably a relative. That would have occurred to Ruby, too, though. But still, she’d called.

“Who’s the match to in the database?” Billie came out and asked.

Ruby blew out an audible breath. “Presley.”

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Chapter Five

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Presley froze. Just froze. And he couldn’t wrap his mind around what Ruby had just said.

Victoria was a familial match to him.

“What the hell?” he muttered, and he started walking. To the elevator. Back down to the bottom floor. Out the door and straight toward his SUV. Billie was right behind him.

“Presley?” Ruby questioned. “Are you still there?”

“Yeah,” he managed, and he didn’t say anything else until Billie and he were in his vehicle. There, he put the call on the dash speaker, mainly so Billie would hear and be able to make sense of this.

“How close of a familial match?” Billie asked. It was a good question, one that should have occurred to Presley.

“Close,” Ruby said, and she continued before Presley could press her for more about that. “She has fifty percent DNA in common with Presley. I’ve done an extensive background check on Victoria, and there’s no indication she’s ever had a child.”

Finally, it all sank in. And it hit him damn hard. “I was abandoned at a fire station when I was a newborn. Parents unknown. I could have siblings,” he added, quickly doing the math to calculate the age difference between Victoria and him.

Sixteen.

She was sixteen years older than him.

“Or Victoria could be my…” He stopped. Had to. And gathered his breath. “My bio mother.”

“Yes,” Ruby confirmed. “Social media was barely a blip when you were born thirty-six years ago so there are no public photos to prove that Victoria was ever pregnant. However, she attended a private boarding school in England, and I was able to find out that she left when she was sixteen and returned a year later. I don’t have an explanation yet about that gap in time.”

Presley was hearing every word Ruby said, but he still wasn’t processing it. Victoria Wessington was likely his mother. She’d been kidnapped. And the kidnappers had requested him.

Shit.

They’d requested him!

Presley groaned and hit his fist on the steering wheel. It was all connected. It had to be.

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