Chapter 7 - THE SECOND HEIR
The police arrested Conrad before dessert.
But the family scandal had only begun.
News spread by morning.
Blackwood Holdings shares dropped.
Reporters surrounded headquarters.
Television networks debated whether the century-old Blackwood fortune had been controlled by the wrong branch for decades.
Victor ignored them.
His priority was Noah.
When Victor returned to the safe house, Noah was asleep against Lily's shoulder.
Lily looked exhausted.
“You should rest,” Victor told her.
“So should you.”
“I forgot how.”
She smiled sadly.
“You'll remember.”
Victor sat beside them.
Noah stirred.
Victor touched the boy's hair.
Nothing had changed.
And everything had.
Thomas had agreed not to pursue personal control of Blackwood Holdings.
Instead, he wanted one thing.
Public acknowledgment of Sebastian.
Victor intended to give him more.
The next morning, he announced that Blackwood Holdings would commission an independent investigation into historical trust fraud.
Conrad's supporters panicked.
Several board members resigned.
Then Serena asked to speak with Victor.
From jail.
Victor almost refused.
Then her attorney mentioned Emily.
He went.
Serena entered the interview room wearing county-issued clothing.
Without expensive makeup, jewelry, and calculated elegance, she looked younger.
And far more frightened.
Victor sat across from her.
“You have ten minutes.”
“Conrad will kill me.”
“He's in custody.”
“You think that matters?”
Victor waited.
Serena leaned forward.
“Conrad has people everywhere.”
“You worked for him willingly.”
“At first.”
“Why?”
“Money.”
At least she admitted it.
“He paid my mother's medical debts. Then he gave me a job at the fertility clinic.”
Victor stared.
“Conrad placed you there?”
“Yes.”
Years before Victor met her.
“What was your assignment?”
“Watch Thomas.”
Victor understood.
“And Emily became connected to him.”
“Yes.”
“So you watched her too.”
Serena nodded.
“Then after Emily died, Conrad told you to approach me.”
“I didn't want to.”
Victor laughed bitterly.
“You became engaged to me.”
“I know.”
“You lived with my son.”
“I know.”
“You injured him.”
Serena began crying.
“I didn't mean to break his arm.”
“Don't.”
She stopped.
Victor's voice hardened.
“If Lily hadn't intervened, what would you have done?”
“I was taking Noah downstairs because Conrad needed a new DNA sample.”
Victor froze.
“What?”
“He didn't trust the old results.”
“Why?”
Serena looked confused.
“He said there was another child.”
Victor stared.
“What other child?”
“I don't know.”
“You're lying.”
“I'm not.”
“Conrad spent years trying to erase Noah because Noah proves Thomas's bloodline.”
“Yes.”
“So what second child?”
Serena whispered, “He said Noah wasn't the only surviving heir.”
Victor felt cold.
“Whose child?”
“I don't know.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Serena remembered.
“He said, ‘If Bennett's second heir exists, everything changes.’”
Victor immediately called Daniel.
They searched Thomas's history.
No marriage.
No listed children.
Victor confronted him that afternoon.
“Do you have another child?”
Thomas looked shocked.
“What?”
“Conrad believed you did.”
Thomas sat slowly.
“There was someone.”
Victor waited.
“In medical school.”
“Name?”
“Claire Morgan.”
“What happened?”
“She became pregnant.”
Victor stared.
“And?”
“She told me she miscarried.”
“When?”
“Nineteen years ago.”
Victor called Daniel.
Claire Morgan had died five years earlier from cancer.
But records showed she had one daughter.
Sophie Morgan.
Age eighteen.
Thomas stopped breathing.
“She had a daughter?”
Victor looked at him.
“Yes.”
“Birthday?”
Daniel read it.
Thomas closed his eyes.
“That was exactly when…”
No one needed him to finish.
DNA testing confirmed it two days later.
Sophie Morgan was Thomas's biological daughter.
Sebastian Blackwood had not one surviving grandchild line.
He had two.
Noah.
And Sophie.
Why did Conrad care?
Because Sophie was legally an adult.
Unlike Noah, she could immediately challenge the trust.
Victor found her at a community college in Pennsylvania.
Sophie worked evenings at a bookstore.
She had curly brown hair and her mother's eyes.
When Victor and Thomas approached her, she thought they were scammers.
“You're saying my father is a doctor and my grandfather was some billionaire's secret brother?”
Thomas looked nervous.
“Yes.”
Sophie crossed her arms.
“This is insane.”
“I agree,” Victor said.
She looked at him.
“And you're Victor Blackwood?”
“Yes.”
“The Victor Blackwood?”
“Unfortunately.”
That made her laugh.
For the first time in days, Thomas smiled.
Sophie agreed to another independent DNA test.
It confirmed everything.
Then her expression changed.
“My mother knew.”
Thomas stared.
“What?”
Sophie brought them to her apartment.
From a locked drawer, she removed an old letter.
Claire had written it shortly before her death.
Thomas read.
Claire explained that after discovering her pregnancy, a Blackwood family representative visited her.
He offered money.
Then threatened Thomas.
Claire was nineteen and terrified.
She moved.
Raised Sophie alone.
Never told Thomas.
At the bottom:
If Sophie ever learns who her father is, tell him I am sorry. I thought disappearing was the only way to keep them both safe.
Thomas cried silently.
Sophie watched him.
“I spent my whole life thinking he didn't want me.”
Thomas looked at her.
“I didn't know.”
“I know that now.”
The tragedy repeated itself again.
Secrets disguised as protection.
Fear disguised as love.
Victor looked at Sophie.
“You don't have to become part of the Blackwood family.”
She smiled sadly.
“Apparently I already am.”
The trust lawyers soon delivered stunning news.
Under Sebastian's restored lineage, Thomas was entitled to controlling voting rights.
If he declined, the rights would be divided between his living children.
Sophie and Noah.
Conrad's entire plan had failed.
But before the court hearing, Daniel discovered something dangerous.
Conrad had transferred twenty-eight million dollars from an offshore account three days before his arrest.
“To whom?” Victor asked.
Daniel looked grim.
“A private security contractor.”
“What contractor?”
“Former military. No longer licensed.”
Victor understood immediately.
Conrad expected to lose legally.
So he had prepared another solution.
Victor reached for his phone.
“Where is Sophie?”
Thomas answered.
“At her apartment.”
Daniel checked the GPS on the protective vehicle Victor had assigned her.
The signal was gone.
Victor called her.
No answer.
Then Thomas's phone rang.
Unknown number.
He answered.
Conrad's voice came through.
“You should have stayed dead with your father.”
Thomas went pale.
Conrad continued.
May you like
“If you want your daughter alive, bring me the original Sebastian trust.”
Then the line disconnected.
