Chapter 7 - THE WILL VICTORIA HAD ALREADY READ
Nathan canceled the estate-planning meeting.
He did not cancel the investigation.
His attorney retrieved the draft will prepared months earlier.
I hated seeing numbers attached to relationships.
Nathan’s personal estate was worth far more than I understood.
Investment accounts.
Real estate.
Private shares.
A family trust interest.
The draft left forty percent to charitable foundations, ten percent to Nathan’s sister Emily, and fifty percent to Victoria if they married.
There was one important clause.
Any legally recognized child would receive a substantial protected share through a descendant trust.
Rebecca was careful.
“Lily’s existence does not automatically make every provision vanish. Estate law is more complicated than that.”
Nathan nodded.
“But it materially changes the planning.”
“Yes.”
Victoria had known.
Metadata showed she viewed a copy of the draft through Nathan’s home-office scanner two months earlier.
He had never given her the file.
That explained financial motive.
Not enough to explain attempted murder.
Jealousy filled the gap too easily.
Rebecca wanted more.
“What happened six weeks before Grace was hired?”
Nathan checked his calendar.
A medical exam.
Routine executive physical.
Nothing.
Then I remembered Victoria asking whether Lily had ever needed a blood transfusion.
At the time, I thought it was concern after Lily scraped her knee.
Now the question felt different.
Nathan looked at me.
“What blood type is Lily?”
“O negative.”
He froze.
“So am I.”
“That proves nothing.”
“I know.”
Rebecca approved of the answer.
We were learning.
Nathan’s executive physical contained genetic-screening information because his father had died from hypertrophic cardiomyopathy.
Nathan carried a specific inherited variant.
The condition could affect children.
My stomach dropped.
“Lily had a pediatric cardiology workup last year.”
“Why?”
“A murmur.”
“Is she okay?”
“Yes. Completely fine so far.”
But her report mentioned genetic testing.
She carried the same rare familial variant.
I had never known Nathan had it.
Victoria had access to his medical scheduling.
She may have seen both pieces.
Not proof of paternity.
A powerful clue.
That could explain why she reactivated surveillance.
Then Rebecca’s investigator found an encrypted message from Victoria to Daniel.
GM kid has marker. Need certainty before signing.
Signing what?
Nathan assumed the will.
Daniel’s reply:
Then force a test without involving N.
N.
Nathan.
They wanted certainty without telling him.
My private DNA envelope had destroyed their control of that certainty.
But the twist came from another attachment.
The document Victoria wanted signed was not Nathan’s will.
It was a prenuptial agreement.
One clause granted Victoria a significant payout if Nathan ended the engagement after publicly acknowledging an undisclosed child conceived before their relationship.
Nathan stared at it.
“I never agreed to that clause.”
Rebecca checked the draft history.
It had been inserted by Daniel Hayes.
Nathan’s own attorney had removed it.
Daniel had reinserted it into a version Victoria circulated privately.
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They were trying to create financial protection against the exact secret Victoria was helping conceal.
📖 Victoria and her brother had quietly built Lily’s possible paternity into a prenup draft, proving they expected Nathan’s hidden daughter to surface long before the kitchen attack. 👇
