Chapter 4 - The File About Amara
Elias moved in front of Isolda.
“Take the baby into the kitchen.”
Isolda did not move.
Another step sounded.
Then another.
Elias picked up the fireplace poker.
“Now.”
Isolda backed toward the kitchen with Amara pressed against her chest.
A shadow appeared above the staircase.
“Don't hit me.”
Elias lowered the poker slightly.
A woman stepped into view.
Isolda stared.
“Mom?”
Marianne Vale gripped the railing.
She was sixty-two, gray beginning to thread through her dark hair, and furious.
“Your brother forgot to mention he was bringing my daughter and brand-new granddaughter to a house where the furnace barely works.”
Elias exhaled violently.
“Mom, I almost killed you.”
“With that rusty thing?”
“You were sneaking around upstairs!”
“I was changing sheets.”
Isolda sank into a chair.
The adrenaline left her body so quickly she became dizzy.
Marianne rushed over.
“Sweetheart.”
She saw Isolda's face.
“What happened?”
Ten minutes later, the entire story was out.
Lucian.
The airport.
The missed birth.
The anonymous messages.
Alaric's surveillance.
Celeste's call.
Marianne listened without interrupting.
Then she said, “You are staying here.”
“Mom—”
“No decisions tonight.”
“I wasn't planning—”
“No divorce decision. No Lucian decision. No mysterious-document decision.”
Elias nodded.
“I agree.”
Marianne pointed at him.
“I didn't ask.”
For the first time in days, Isolda felt protected rather than managed.
There was a difference.
A profound one.
The next morning, however, Celeste did not answer any calls.
By noon, Isolda contacted Lucian.
“Have you spoken to Celeste?”
“No. Why?”
Isolda told him what happened.
Lucian's tone changed immediately.
“Where are you?”
She hesitated.
“I'm not telling you.”
“Fine. Stay there.”
“I was already planning to.”
“I'll find Celeste.”
“How?”
“With Marcus.”
“Your security chief?”
“Yes.”
“Lucian, don't turn this into some corporate war.”
“It already is.”
She heard something in his voice.
Fear.
“What happened?”
“My father removed me from two executive committees this morning.”
“Why?”
“Because I froze his access to company surveillance accounts.”
Isolda frowned.
“He's retaliating.”
“Yes.”
“Then let him.”
“I can't.”
“Why?”
“Because one of the accounts was used to access your medical records.”
Silence.
Isolda stood slowly.
“What?”
“Not the hospital records from Amara's birth. Earlier prenatal records.”
Her free hand began shaking.
“Who accessed them?”
“An outside contractor paid through a Draven Holdings subsidiary.”
Isolda looked at Amara sleeping nearby.
“What records?”
“Blood tests.”
Her breathing changed.
Lucian heard it.
“Isolda.”
“What blood tests?”
“I don't know yet.”
“Find out.”
“I will.”
“No.”
Her voice hardened.
“Find out now.”
Lucian did.
Within an hour, Marcus obtained the audit trail.
A genetic screening report had been accessed twice during Isolda's pregnancy.
The report included routine fetal DNA testing.
Lucian stared at the screen.
“Why would my father care about this?”
Marcus looked uneasy.
“There was also a paternity analysis.”
Lucian's head snapped up.
“What?”
“It wasn't ordered by Mrs. Draven.”
“Then who ordered it?”
“The lab received a private request using her existing blood sample.”
Lucian's face went white.
“Without consent?”
“Yes.”
“And the result?”
Marcus turned the laptop.
Probability of paternity: 99.99%.
Lucian stared.
“My father tested whether Amara was mine.”
“Yes.”
Rage moved through Lucian with terrifying calm.
He called Alaric.
No answer.
He drove to Draven Tower.
His father's office was empty.
Then Marcus called.
“We found Celeste.”
Lucian stopped.
“Where?”
“St. Vincent's Hospital.”
“What happened?”
“She was attacked in her apartment.”
Lucian arrived twenty minutes later.
Celeste had a bruised temple and three stitches near her hairline.
She looked embarrassed rather than frightened.
“You weren't supposed to know.”
Lucian stood beside the hospital bed.
“Isolda called me.”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“Of course she did.”
“Who attacked you?”
“I didn't see him.”
“Why were you working for my father?”
“I wasn't.”
“You told Isolda—”
“I agreed to Alaric's plan so I could find out what he was planning.”
“For whom?”
Celeste looked toward the door.
“No one.”
Lucian's patience snapped.
“Celeste.”
“For myself.”
He frowned.
She reached for a glass of water.
“My father invested with yours twenty years ago.”
“So?”
“So he lost everything.”
Lucian said nothing.
“Your father manipulated a merger. My father took the blame. He killed himself six months later.”
Lucian's anger disappeared into shock.
“I didn't know.”
“No.”
Celeste smiled bitterly.
“People like Alaric survive because everyone around them doesn't know.”
“Why involve Isolda?”
“I didn't want to.”
“But you did.”
“Yes.”
Celeste looked ashamed.
“Alaric approached me three months ago. He said your marriage was distracting you. He wanted public photographs suggesting we were close.”
“And you agreed.”
“I thought it would give me access to him.”
“It nearly ended my marriage.”
Celeste's expression hardened.
“No, Lucian. You nearly ended your marriage when you silenced your wife's call.”
He flinched.
She continued more softly.
“I helped create the appearance. That was wrong. But I told you to leave the airport.”
“I know.”
Celeste reached toward a bag on the chair.
“The document I wanted to show Isolda is in there.”
Lucian opened it.
Inside was a thin file.
PROJECT HEIR.
His stomach tightened.
“What is this?”
“Your father started it after Isolda became pregnant.”
Lucian opened the folder.
Medical data.
Inheritance structures.
Trust documents.
Lucian's eyes moved faster.
Then stopped.
CONTINGENCY UPON MARITAL SEPARATION.
Custodial leverage.
Prenuptial pressure points.
Infant trust control.
He looked at Celeste.
“What does ‘custodial leverage’ mean?”
“I don't know.”
Lucian flipped another page.
There was an unsigned petition.
Temporary guardianship based on alleged postpartum instability.
His face drained.
“He was preparing to call Isolda an unfit mother.”
Celeste nodded.
“So he could control the baby.”
“My daughter.”
“Yes.”
Lucian stood so suddenly the chair hit the wall.
“I'll destroy him.”
“That won't help Isolda.”
He looked at her.
“Then what will?”
“Evidence.”
Celeste pointed at the file.
“This is a copy. The originals are somewhere in your father's private archive.”
“Where?”
“I don't know.”
Lucian did.
His father's estate had an underground records room built during the 1990s.
Lucian had been forbidden from entering as a child.
He called Isolda.
She answered immediately.
“What did you find?”
He told her everything.
For several seconds there was only silence.
Then Isolda asked, “Your father wanted to take Amara from me?”
“He prepared for the possibility.”
“Don't soften it.”
Lucian closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Marianne, Elias, and Isolda sat around the cottage table as Lucian spoke through the phone.
Isolda looked at her daughter.
Something primal awakened beneath her exhaustion.
“Where is Alaric?”
“I don't know.”
“Find him.”
“I will.”
“And Lucian?”
“Yes?”
“If he comes near my daughter, I call the police.”
“You won't have to.”
There was no hesitation.
“I'll stand between you.”
Isolda shut her eyes.
A week ago those words would have meant everything.
Now they were only words.
Still, she believed him.
At least about this.
That evening, Lucian used his legal authority as a shareholder to enter the estate archive.
Marcus accompanied him.
The underground room held thirty years of corporate secrets.
Contracts.
Settlements.
Letters.
Lucian searched for Project Heir.
Nothing.
Then Marcus noticed scrape marks beneath a cabinet.
They moved it.
A small steel safe was built into the wall.
Lucian tried his father's birthday.
Wrong.
His mother's birthday.
Wrong.
Then he tried his own.
The lock clicked.
Inside were three folders.
The first contained Project Heir.
The second contained records concerning Celeste's father.
The third had no label.
Lucian opened it.
A birth certificate sat on top.
He frowned.
It was his.
Lucian Draven.
Mother: Evelyn Draven.
Father:
Lucian stared.
The name was not Alaric Draven.
He read it again.
Then a voice came from behind him.
“I wondered when you'd finally find that.”
Lucian turned.
May you like
His father stood in the doorway.
And he was holding the only key that could lock them underground.
