Chapter 17 - Victoria’s Choice
Victoria faced charges connected to evidence tampering, assault, and conspiracy.
Her attorney tried to separate her from Charles.
Some of that was fair.
Charles had controlled her life for years.
But Victoria had made choices of her own.
At a formal interview, she admitted she learned the truth about Lily two years earlier and stayed silent to protect the merger.
She also admitted disabling the kitchen camera schedule before confronting Grace.
“I wanted the photograph,” she said.
Nathan asked one question through his attorney.
“Why the hockey stick?”
Victoria cried.
“I wanted Grace to be afraid enough to leave.”
That answer ended whatever sympathy Nathan still carried.
Victoria later provided investigators with passwords to Charles’s private archive.
Her cooperation reduced some charges but did not erase them.
Nathan refused every request for a private meeting.
Grace asked him why.
“What would I say?”
“Maybe that you forgive her.”
“I don’t.”
Grace looked at him.
Nathan continued, “Maybe someday I won’t be angry. That isn’t the same as pretending she deserves access to me.”
Grace nodded slowly.
“You’ve changed.”
“I’m trying.”
Lily had started calling him Nathan sometimes and Daddy other times.
Nathan never corrected her.
One afternoon she asked him to push her on the backyard swing.
He did.
“Higher!”
“Your mother will kill me.”
Grace called from the patio, “Correct.”
Lily laughed.
For five minutes, the world felt normal.
Then Daniel walked outside with a package.
No return address.
Inside was the stolen first DNA evidence box.
And a note.
May you like
YOU FOUND THE FATHER.
NOW ASK WHO CHANGED LILY’S BIRTH CERTIFICATE.
