Chapter 6 - The Name Beatrice Shouldn’t Know
The recording was dated three weeks earlier.
Beatrice’s voice came first.
“If Claire delivers a daughter, the trust changes.”
Julian answered, “She doesn’t know that.”
“She never read Harrison’s maternity clause.”
I stopped the audio.
“What maternity clause?”
Naomi searched the trust documents.
The original deed contained a reference to an attached family succession schedule.
That attachment was missing from the copy in Vault 614.
Martin Hale checked the bank archive.
Someone had removed it seven years ago using Julian’s authorization.
But Julian had no legal right to access the box.
Someone at the bank had helped him.
Vanessa resumed the recording.
Julian asked, “What happens if it’s a boy?”
“Claire retains the house. The company shares remain divided.”
“And if it’s a girl?”
“The Mercer voting trust transfers fully to Claire’s first daughter.”
My hand moved to my belly.
I had never told Julian the baby’s sex.
I wanted it to be a surprise.
Only my obstetrician knew.
Beatrice continued.
“We cannot allow another Mercer woman to control the estate.”
Julian sounded nervous.
“Claire is eight months pregnant.”
“Then stop thinking like a husband.”
The audio ended.
Naomi looked at me.
“They knew you’re having a girl.”
“How?”
“Medical records.”
We called my obstetrician, Dr. Lena Brooks.
Her receptionist said she had left the clinic unexpectedly that morning.
Her office was empty.
Her phone was disconnected.
Police searched her records.
Someone had accessed my chart eleven times from an outside terminal.
The account belonged to a nurse named Emily Ward.
Emily had resigned two months earlier.
Her address led to a small house outside the city.
No one answered.
Police found the back door open.
Inside, the living room had been ransacked.
A framed photograph lay broken on the floor.
Emily stood beside Beatrice at a charity hospital gala.
They knew each other.
In the bedroom, officers found copies of my ultrasound images.
One had GIRL circled in red.
Another note read:
Delivery before August 14 disrupts transfer.
Naomi read it twice.
“What happens on August 14?”
“My thirty-ninth birthday.”
We checked the trust again.
The missing maternity clause likely activated when I turned thirty-nine.
That was seven days away.
The same seven days Beatrice threatened me with.
The same seven days before Julian returned to the mansion in the video idea’s second scene.
They were not waiting randomly.
They were racing a legal deadline.
If I remained alive and pregnant until August 14, the trust would transfer full control of the Mercer holdings to me and my daughter.
If I died before then, Julian could claim spousal management rights during probate.
If the baby died too, Beatrice could challenge the entire maternal line.
My blood went cold.
They had not thrown me out because they believed the child was illegitimate.
They had thrown me out because the child was legitimate enough to destroy them.
Then the hospital called.
Dr. Brooks had been found unconscious inside her car.
She was alive.
Before losing consciousness, she had written one word in blood on the dashboard.
May you like
INDUCTION.
👉 Claire discovered Beatrice needed the baby born—or killed—before August 14, and the attack on her doctor meant the final plan had already begun.
