"Is that so?" I let out a cold, humorless laugh, my gaze sweeping slowly across the crowd gathered below the stage. "Then the baby you're holding is my son. Yours never made it. He was stillborn, and your husband had him tossed out like trash."
The room went completely silent.
"You... you're lying!" Vanessa screamed, her face draining of all color.
Derek snapped at me just as sharply, his voice cutting through the air. "Joanne! Have you lost your mind? Get down from there!"
"Me?" I turned to him, the hatred in my eyes no longer hidden. "I'm not the one who's lost it. The two of you are."
I pulled a document from my bag and flung it straight at Vanessa's face.
"Take a good look," I said, my voice hard. "That's a DNA test. It proves this child and I are mother and son, 99.9 percent mat
