Chapter 9 - THE CHILDREN
I couldn't speak.
Selina handed me the photograph.
A newborn boy.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
And around his wrist was a tiny hospital bracelet.
VANCE.
“How could he be mine?”
Selina was crying.
“Not biologically.”
“What?”
“Your mother's egg.”
My breath stopped.
She explained.
Months before my pregnancy, someone had stolen genetic material from a fertility clinic.
My mother had discovered it.
The embryo had been created from my genetic material and Flynn's.
But before it could be implanted in me, it disappeared.
Selina had been used as a surrogate without knowing the entire truth.
Her son was biologically mine.
My daughter was also biologically mine.
Twins.
Separated before birth.
I stared at Flynn.
“You knew?”
“No.”
He looked devastated.
“I knew there was an embryo missing.”
“But you never told me.”
“I was afraid.”
I looked at Selina.
“Who took him?”
She handed Phoebe another envelope.
“The name is inside.”
Phoebe opened it.
Then she stopped.
“What?”
She looked at me.
“The fertility doctor.”
My stomach turned.
“Who?”
She whispered the name.
A doctor who had treated me.
A man I had trusted.
But he wasn't working alone.
He had been paid by Eleanor.
The entire scheme had been designed to create a false heir while hiding the real successor.
Except Eleanor had made one mistake.
The stolen embryo was genetically mine.
And the moment the DNA results were entered into the trust records, Lily and her brother both became recognized descendants.
Two children.
Two legal heirs.
Two lives that Eleanor could no longer erase.
The police arrested the doctor that evening.
He confessed.
Eleanor had paid him.
But there was another confession.
One that made the room silent.
The doctor said Eleanor hadn't created the plan.
She had inherited it.
From someone who had been dead for years.
Flynn's father.
The man who supposedly wanted to protect me.
The man who had secretly manipulated everyone.
Including Flynn.
I looked at Thomas.
“You knew.”
He nodded.
“I knew some of it.”
“Why didn't you stop him?”
“Because I tried.”
“And?”
“He threatened your mother.”
My mother reached for my hand.
“He made me disappear to keep you alive.”
The truth finally connected.
The affair.
The fake pregnancy story.
The stolen embryo.
The trust.
The dead man.
All of it had been designed to control one thing.
The inheritance.
But the final document revealed something nobody expected.
The trust didn't belong to Lily.
It didn't belong to her brother.
It belonged to whoever protected both children.
And the person named in the final clause was me.
I was the trustee.
For life.
Flynn stared at me.
“So you control everything.”
I shook my head.
“No.”
I looked at our children.
“They do.”
“And I?”
I met his eyes.
“You get the chance to become their father.”
His eyes filled with tears.
But before he could answer, the police chief entered.
“We found the remaining account.”
“What account?”
He placed a photograph on the table.
The account holder was my father.
The man who had abandoned my mother.
The man I believed had died before I turned twenty.
He wasn't dead.
May you like
And he had just withdrawn $17 million.
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