Chapter 2 - PROJECT WIDOW
For several seconds, Victor believed he had misunderstood her.
“You?”
Eleanor Blackwood didn't answer immediately.
She glanced toward Serena.
Serena looked almost relieved.
That reaction made Victor furious.
“Everyone out except my mother, Daniel, and Serena.”
The staff left.
Lily remained upstairs with Noah and Dr. Morrison.
Victor shut the security-room door.
“Explain.”
Eleanor sat slowly.
“After Emily became pregnant, I began receiving threats.”
Victor frowned.
“What threats?”
“Anonymous letters. Emails. Photographs.”
“Why didn't you tell me?”
“Because the messages said Noah would die if I did.”
Victor stared at her.
Eleanor continued.
“They knew Emily's medical appointments. Your travel schedule. The nursery layout. They knew things only someone inside this family should have known.”
Daniel crossed his arms.
“What did Project Widow have to do with that?”
Eleanor looked ashamed.
“I hired a private investigator without Victor's knowledge.”
“And called it Project Widow?”
“No.”
She looked at Serena.
“That name came later.”
Serena said nothing.
Eleanor continued.
“My investigator believed someone was trying to manipulate Emily's medical care. He found prescription changes that Emily's doctors hadn't authorized.”
Victor felt the floor shift beneath him.
“What prescription changes?”
“Blood pressure medication. Dosage adjustments.”
Victor's voice sharpened.
“Emily had severe postpartum complications.”
“I know.”
“You're telling me someone caused them?”
“I don't know.”
“That's not good enough!”
Eleanor's composure cracked.
“I was trying to protect her!”
Victor laughed once, without humor.
“By keeping secrets?”
“I made mistakes.”
“Emily died!”
The word echoed.
Serena looked toward the floor.
Victor noticed.
“Look at me.”
Serena didn't.
“LOOK AT ME.”
She raised her head.
“Were you involved?”
“No.”
“You were discussing Emily on camera.”
“Because Eleanor told me about the investigation.”
Eleanor quickly shook her head.
“No, I didn't.”
Serena's eyes flashed.
“Don't lie now.”
Victor looked between them.
“What is happening?”
Daniel's computer beeped.
The encrypted folder had partially opened.
One document appeared.
A spreadsheet.
Dates.
Payments.
Names.
One name repeated dozens of times.
DR. MALCOLM CREED.
Victor knew it.
Dr. Creed had been Emily's private obstetric consultant.
He had retired suddenly two weeks after her death.
Daniel searched the payment trail.
“These payments came from a shell company.”
“Owned by whom?” Victor asked.
Daniel looked uncomfortable.
“Blackwood Holdings.”
Victor's mouth went dry.
“That's impossible.”
“Not exactly.”
Eleanor whispered.
Victor turned.
She looked devastated.
“Your father created several private accounts decades ago.”
“My father is dead.”
“Yes.”
“Then who had access?”
Eleanor hesitated.
Victor stepped toward her.
“Who?”
“Your brother.”
Victor stopped.
Alexander Blackwood.
His older brother.
The family disgrace.
Victor hadn't spoken to him in nearly eight years.
Alexander had been removed from Blackwood Holdings after stealing millions through fraudulent investments.
Victor believed he lived somewhere in Europe.
“He doesn't have access anymore.”
“He shouldn't,” Daniel said. “But someone has been moving money through one of his old corporate authorization keys.”
Serena suddenly spoke.
“Victor, this is exactly what I've been trying to tell you.”
He turned.
“You were trying to tell me?”
“Alexander contacted me.”
Eleanor's eyes widened.
“When?”
“Last year.”
Victor's stomach tightened.
“What did he want?”
“He said your family destroyed him.”
“And you believed him?”
“No. At first.”
“At first?”
Serena swallowed.
“He showed me documents.”
“About Emily?”
“About you.”
Victor stared.
“What documents?”
“Your father's will.”
Eleanor went rigid.
“My father's will has nothing to do with Noah.”
Serena gave her a strange look.
“Doesn't it?”
Victor saw fear pass through his mother's face.
“You know something else.”
Eleanor stood.
“We need to focus on Noah.”
“No.”
Victor blocked the door.
“We're focusing on whatever everyone has been hiding from me.”
Daniel received another result.
“Sir.”
Victor turned.
“I found the authorization history.”
“Tell me.”
“Someone accessed your estate network eleven times using Alexander's credentials.”
“When?”
“The first access was sixteen months ago.”
Two months before Emily died.
Victor's heart hammered.
“The most recent?”
Daniel looked toward Serena.
“Tonight.”
Serena shook her head.
“No.”
Daniel rotated the screen.
The access came from inside the mansion.
Victor stepped closer.
“Which device?”
Daniel opened the network map.
“Your mother's office.”
Everyone looked at Eleanor.
She went pale.
“I didn't access anything tonight.”
Daniel checked again.
“The system says someone did.”
Victor looked at his mother.
“Where were you twenty minutes before I came home?”
“At the charity board dinner.”
“Can anyone verify that?”
“Forty people.”
Daniel nodded.
“She was there. Security drove her.”
Then someone had used Eleanor's office.
Victor opened the office camera archive.
Deleted.
He looked at Daniel.
“Service hallway?”
Deleted.
“Library?”
Deleted.
Daniel cursed under his breath.
Someone had cleaned the route.
Except for one thing.
The greenhouse camera was not connected to the primary security network.
Victor remembered installing it after raccoons repeatedly damaged Emily's orchids.
Daniel accessed it.
A grainy night image appeared.
A man emerged from a rear service door.
Baseball cap.
Dark jacket.
The same man from Serena's secret recording.
He crossed the greenhouse.
For one second, he looked directly at the camera.
Victor's breath stopped.
Older.
Thinner.
Gray at the temples.
But unmistakable.
Alexander Blackwood.
Victor's brother.
Serena stepped backward.
Victor looked at her.
“You knew he was here.”
“No.”
“Stop lying.”
“He wasn't supposed to come inside!”
Victor's voice became dangerously quiet.
“So you did know.”
Serena began crying.
“He told me he only needed documents.”
“What documents?”
“I don't know.”
Victor moved closer.
“You endangered my son for documents?”
“No!”
“You disconnected the foyer camera.”
“Yes, but not because of Noah.”
“Why?”
“Alexander told me he needed twenty minutes without security recordings.”
Victor looked sick.
“You gave him access to my home.”
Serena wiped her face.
“He promised me he wasn't going near Noah.”
“And you believed him?”
“He had something on me.”
“What?”
She shook her head.
Victor leaned closer.
“What did my brother have on you?”
Serena whispered, “Proof that I knew Emily before you.”
Victor froze.
“What?”
Eleanor sat down hard.
Serena's tears came faster.
“I met Emily four years ago.”
“Where?”
“At a fertility clinic.”
Victor stared.
“What were you doing at Emily's fertility clinic?”
Serena closed her eyes.
“I wasn't a patient.”
Victor waited.
“I worked there.”
“You told me you were an art consultant.”
“I was. Later.”
“What did you do at the clinic?”
“Administrative records.”
Victor's breathing changed.
Emily had struggled for years to become pregnant.
She rarely discussed the fertility treatments because they were painful emotionally and physically.
Serena looked terrified now.
“There were irregularities with Emily's file.”
“What irregularities?”
“I didn't understand them then.”
“Understand what?”
She looked toward Eleanor.
Eleanor whispered, “Don't.”
Victor snapped around.
“You know too?”
Eleanor began shaking her head.
Serena said the words anyway.
“Emily's embryo transfer record was altered.”
Victor stared.
“What does that mean?”
Serena swallowed.
“It means the medical file identifying the biological father was changed.”
The room went silent.
Victor could hear the computer fan humming.
He looked at Serena.
“Say that again.”
“According to the original clinic records…”
She struggled to finish.
Victor's voice became almost a whisper.
“According to the original records, what?”
May you like
Serena looked directly at him.
“You may not be Noah's biological father.”
