Chapter 4 - CAMILA KNEW BEFORE MATTHEW WAS BORN
Camila was twenty-six when she signed the document.
Back then, she worked as a junior risk analyst inside Vance Global.
I had forgotten.
There were twelve thousand employees across the group.
Camila and I did not meet socially until five years later.
Apparently Nicholas knew her first.
The notarized document was careful.
Nicholas did not claim certainty without a DNA test.
He stated that Rose Mendoza was pregnant, that he believed the child was his, and that if he died before birth, funds should be reserved until paternity could be confirmed.
Then came the money.
Not cash.
Shares.
Nicholas owned seventeen percent of Vance Global through a generation-skipping family trust.
After his death, those shares were placed into a contingent reserve.
The rule was simple:
If Nicholas left a biological child, the child inherited.
If no descendant was legally verified within ten years, the shares would be divided between surviving Vance family beneficiaries.
Nine years had almost passed.
Matthew was one year away from losing everything simply because nobody knew he existed.
Or because somebody made sure nobody knew.
“Current value?” I asked Michael.
He hesitated.
“Depending on private valuation, probably somewhere between three hundred and four hundred million.”
I sat down.
Matthew was seven.
He still slept in dinosaur pajamas.
And adults had apparently built an eight-year conspiracy around what he might someday own.
Then Michael turned another page.
The contingent shares came with future voting rights.
Enough that, combined with certain employee and foundation shares, Matthew’s independent trustee could prevent any single Vance family member from controlling the company.
Victor had expected to receive almost half of Nicholas’s block if no child appeared.
So had I.
I had never cared because I already held more money than I could spend.
Victor cared about control.
Then I examined Camila’s witness signature.
She had seen everything.
The pregnancy.
The trust.
Nicholas’s wishes.
Yet she had spent three years in my life without mentioning Rose once.
I called her attorney.
“I want a meeting.”
Camila agreed that afternoon.
Lawyers present.
No private conversation.
She looked exhausted.
No makeup.
No black silk dress.
“Why did you sign Nicholas’s document?”
Her eyes filled.
“Because he asked me.”
“So you knew about Rose.”
“Yes.”
“Matthew?”
“I knew she was pregnant. I didn’t know whether she had the baby.”
Lie.
I placed a photograph on the table.
Six months earlier.
Camila leaving a pediatric clinic in Bridgeport.
Private investigators had pulled it from archived location data after Rose named her.
Camila stared.
“I can explain.”
“Try.”
“I found Rose last year.”
“Why?”
“Victor asked me to.”
The room became still.
“And you didn’t tell me.”
“No.”
“Did you meet Matthew?”
“Yes.”
My chest tightened.
“You looked at my brother’s son and still came home and planned our wedding.”
Camila started crying.
“I was afraid.”
“Of Victor?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Then she looked at my attorney.
“Because he had evidence that could destroy me.”
“What evidence?”
Camila whispered:
“After Nicholas died, I helped Victor hide the trust.”
There it was.
Not ignorance.
Participation.
Then Michael plugged Nicholas’s flash drive into an isolated forensic computer.
One folder appeared.
CAMI.
Inside were emails between Nicholas and Camila.
At first, they looked friendly.
Professional.
Then Nicholas wrote:
You were right about the procurement numbers. Something is wrong.
Camila replied:
I think Victor knows.
My stomach turned.
May you like
Before Nicholas died, Camila had not been Victor’s accomplice.
She had been helping my brother investigate him.
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