Chapter 6 - Two Liars
Victor stopped answering calls.
That was Claire’s first answer.
Maya sent formal notice.
The board’s counsel became involved.
Victor eventually agreed to a recorded meeting.
He looked ten years older than he had two weeks earlier.
Claire placed the verified paternity report in front of him.
He did not touch it.
“You knew.”
Victor said nothing.
“You knew Nathan was your son.”
His eyes closed.
“When?”
Claire demanded.
“Twelve years ago?”
“Yes.”
“So you lied to me.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Victor looked at her.
“Because Nathan made me promise.”
That stopped her.
“What?”
Victor opened his briefcase.
Inside was a sealed envelope.
Nathan’s handwriting.
Claire recognized it instantly.
Victor.
Victor placed it on the table.
“He gave me this after the tests.”
Claire stared.
“Why do you have a letter from my husband that I’ve never seen?”
“Because it was to me.”
Maya asked:
“What does it contain?”
Victor looked at Claire.
“Permission?”
Claire almost laughed at the irony.
Then nodded.
Victor opened it.
Nathan’s letter was twelve years old.
I know. Mom finally told me. I made her show me the raw test. You are my biological father.
Claire’s eyes blurred.
So Nathan knew.
Victor continued reading.
I don’t want you to tell Claire if I ever marry her. I don’t want you to tell anyone. Charles is my father. Biology does not get to arrive twenty-six years late and rewrite that because Mom lied.
Claire whispered:
“He knew before we met.”
“Yes.”
Anger returned.
“Why didn’t he tell me?”
Victor’s voice softened.
“Because he was ashamed.”
“Of what?”
“Eleanor.”
Claire almost shouted.
“She was not his shame to carry.”
“No.”
Victor looked at the letter.
“Nathan understood that eventually.”
He continued.
Thomas is furious. He thinks hiding this protects Eleanor. Maybe it does. But mostly I’m protecting Dad. He chose me every day. I will not let people reduce him to the man whose wife had an affair.
Claire cried quietly.
Charles had known Nathan was not biologically his.
Nathan later discovered Victor was his biological father.
But Charles remained Dad.
That Claire understood.
She did not understand the secrecy from her.
“Did Nathan ever plan to tell me?”
Victor hesitated.
“There’s another letter.”
Claire looked at him.
“Of course there is.”
This one was recent.
Written eleven months ago.
Before the crash.
If Lily is born healthy, I’m telling Claire everything. Thomas. You. Mom. The tests. I don’t want our daughter born into a secret I’m asking Claire to unknowingly protect.
Claire covered her mouth.
Nathan had planned to tell her.
Too late.
Again.
Always too late.
Victor’s voice broke.
“He died before he could.”
Claire wanted to be furious.
She was.
But grief entered beside it.
Nathan had failed.
Nathan had also been trying to change.
Both could be true.
Maya redirected.
“Why did Eleanor fabricate Jonathan Reed as the father?”
Victor looked at his hands.
“To protect me.”
“From what?”
“Charles.”
Claire frowned.
“Charles already knew you fathered Thomas.”
“Yes.”
“But not Nathan?”
“Not initially.”
Victor explained.
After Nathan’s paternity test excluded Charles, Eleanor feared Charles would suspect Victor immediately because of Thomas.
She created the Reed story.
For several months Charles believed it.
Then Beatrice found inconsistencies.
Charles confronted Eleanor.
Eventually she admitted Victor was Nathan’s biological father too.
“Did Charles attack you?”
“No.”
“Fire you?”
“No.”
“He kept you as business partner?”
Victor looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Charles believed destroying the company would punish thousands of people for our choices.”
That sounded like Charles again.
Boundary between accountability and destruction.
“What did he do?”
“Removed me from several trust positions. Changed governance rules. Forced me to sign an acknowledgment that I had no paternal claim regarding Nathan.”
Claire stared.
“And he protected Nathan.”
“Yes.”
“What about Thomas?”
Victor’s face tightened.
“That is where Charles and I disagreed.”
Charles offered Thomas education funds, the Ashford surname, and private acknowledgment.
But no inheritance equivalent to Nathan’s.
Not because Thomas was less biologically connected.
Because Nathan was Charles’s legal child; Thomas was not.
Thomas saw hypocrisy.
Perhaps rightly.
“He left,” Victor said.
“Because all of you wanted private solutions to public lies.”
Victor accepted that.
Then Claire asked:
“Why does Eleanor want Lily’s shares?”
Victor looked up.
“Because she is afraid of you.”
“Me?”
“You would control Nathan’s voting interest as trustee while Lily is a minor.”
“So?”
“You already opposed Eleanor’s plan to sell the oncology division.”
Claire remembered.
Nathan had opposed it too.
Eleanor and Victor wanted a sale.
Nathan believed the division was central to Charles’s mission.
After Nathan died, Eleanor expected his shares to revert to the family trust if no descendant inherited.
Lily prevented that.
“Eighty-four million dollars matters,” Claire said.
Victor nodded.
“But voting control matters more.”
“Yes.”
Claire leaned back.
Now the motive became clearer.
Eleanor’s DNA fraud was not primarily about disliking Claire.
It was corporate.
Personal.
Historical.
All at once.
By erasing Lily, Eleanor could recover Nathan’s shares and secure a board majority for the oncology sale.
“How much is the sale worth?”
Victor answered quietly.
“Roughly 3.2 billion.”
Claire almost laughed.
Lily’s inheritance was not the real prize.
Her vote was.
“And you supported the sale?”
“Yes.”
“Do you still?”
Victor hesitated.
“That’s separate.”
“No.”
Claire shook her head.
“That is the whole problem. None of you understand what is separate.”
Marriage.
Paternity.
Business.
Children.
Inheritance.
Love.
Everything had been mixed until people became mechanisms.
Victor looked defeated.
Claire stood.
“My daughter will inherit whatever Nathan lawfully left her.”
Victor nodded.
“And I’ll decide how to vote those shares based on what protects her interests and the company.”
Eleanor’s strategy was collapsing.
But Maya remained cautious.
“We still need the trust documents.”
The missing codicil.
Charles’s amendment protecting Nathan and descendants irrespective of biology.
Even if Nathan’s own shares clearly passed through his estate, Eleanor could attack various family-trust distributions.
The codicil would end much of that argument.
Victor said:
“I don’t have it.”
Claire believed him now.
Perhaps foolishly.
Then Thomas joined by video from Oregon.
He had listened through counsel.
When Victor appeared on screen, Thomas’s face hardened.
They had not spoken in fourteen years.
Victor whispered:
“Tom.”
Thomas answered:
“Don’t.”
One word.
Victor obeyed.
Thomas looked at Claire.
“Nathan once told me Charles hid important documents where Eleanor would never look.”
Claire frowned.
“Where?”
Thomas almost smiled.
“In something she considered useless.”
“What?”
“Nathan said Charles kept every failed drug patent his company abandoned.”
Victor’s eyes widened.
“The archive.”
Ashford Biologics maintained a physical patent archive in an old research building in New Jersey.
Thousands of boxes.
Decades of failed compounds.
Eleanor hated the place.
Charles loved it.
Claire felt the first flicker of hope.
Then Victor said:
“The building is being cleared next month.”
“Why?”
“For redevelopment.”
“Who authorized it?”
Victor hesitated.
“Eleanor.”
Of course.
And suddenly the missing codicil was no longer merely lost.
May you like
It might be sitting in a building Eleanor was preparing to empty.
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