Chapter 4 - THE TRUST
Nathan read the DNA report twice.
"How did she get Lily's DNA?"
Grace looked sick.
"Her hairbrush disappeared from the staff bathroom last month."
Emma nodded. "Victoria paid a private lab. I found the invoice."
Nathan's anger changed shape.
This was no longer cruelty for cruelty's sake.
Someone had needed certainty.
His attorney, Daniel Mercer, arrived before midnight.
He read the report and asked one question.
"Who else knows?"
Emma answered, "Marcus."
Daniel closed his eyes.
Nathan noticed.
"What?"
Daniel opened the Cole family trust on his tablet.
Nathan's late father had written a succession clause years earlier. If Nathan had a biological child before age forty, twelve percent of Cole Capital voting stock moved into a protected trust for that child.
Until then, those voting rights remained under a temporary family committee.
The committee chair was Marcus.
Nathan stared at the screen.
"Lily's existence removes Marcus from control."
"Not completely," Daniel said. "But enough to block several transactions he has pending."
Grace shook her head.
"So my daughter was being hurt over stock?"
"Over control," Emma said quietly.
Nathan looked at her.
"You knew about the trust?"
"Your father told me before he died."
That surprised everyone.
Emma had worked for the Cole family twenty-seven years.
She opened another folder.
Inside were photographs of Grace and Lily taken from cars, grocery-store parking lots, the preschool entrance.
Months of surveillance.
One photograph showed Lily asleep in Grace's apartment.
Taken through the bedroom window.
Grace went pale.
Nathan turned the image over.
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On the back, someone had written:
IF THE CHILD ENTERS THE HOUSE, MOVE TO PHASE TWO.
