Chapter 4 - The Baby Was Never His
Sophia was waiting in Nina's office when I arrived.
She looked worse than before.
"I got the result this morning," she said.
She pushed the lab report across the desk.
Probability of paternity for Lukas Vance: excluded.
Nina read it twice.
"Does Lukas know?"
"No. I ordered it privately."
"Why?"
Sophia looked at me. "Because his dates started changing. He kept telling me the baby was conceived on a weekend when I wasn't even with him."
I felt no satisfaction.
Only a colder question.
"If Lukas knew he was almost certainly infertile, why announce the baby as his?"
Nina tapped Exhibit C.
"We find the trust."
By noon, she had located a reference in an old probate filing from Lukas's grandfather.
The Vance Family Continuity Trust controlled thirty-eight percent of Vance Components, the manufacturing company Lukas's father ran.
A distribution clause released voting control to the next generation when the oldest grandson had a legally recognized child before age forty.
Lukas would turn forty in six months.
Sophia stared at the page.
"So I'm an incubator to them?"
I looked at the guardianship agreement.
"And I was supposed to become the free childcare."
Nina shook her head.
"Worse. If they established Lukas as legal father, the trust could release before anyone challenged biology."
Sophia covered her mouth.
"They knew."
"Maybe."
My phone vibrated.
Lukas again.
COME HOME NOW. MY PARENTS ARE HERE.
Then a photo followed.
Our dining table.
Ingrid, Lukas, and Peter Voller were seated around it.
On the table was a blue folder stamped CONFIDENTIAL.
I zoomed in.
The clinic logo was visible in the corner.
They already had a copy of my fertility file.
Nina looked at the screen.
"They're building something."
Then Sophia whispered, "Evelyn, look behind Peter."
May you like
A document on the sideboard had my name across the top.
PETITION FOR EMERGENCY GUARDIANSHIP.
