Chapter 3 - THE STERLING CLAUSE
My family trust contained an old clause I had never activated.
Any pregnant female descendant who entered the original Sterling residence seeking protection from a spouse triggered an emergency inheritance review.
The clause had been written by my grandmother after her sister died in an abusive marriage.
It froze spousal access.
It protected the woman.
But it also required verification of the unborn child’s paternal identity.
Dominic knew.
By forcing Clara to my porch, he triggered the review himself.
Why would he sacrifice control?
Because the review opened records sealed for twenty-two years.
Records tied to Nathan Ward.
Nathan had been my husband Richard’s business partner.
He disappeared after stealing money from the Sterling company.
Officially, his car went over a cliff.
No body was recovered.
I suspected Richard helped him vanish.
Now Nathan’s DNA appeared in Clara’s pregnancy file.
The results confirmed it.
The baby’s biological father was not Dominic.
Nathan Ward was.
My daughter had never consented to any procedure involving him.
Her prenatal records showed an embryo transfer performed during what she believed was emergency surgery for a ruptured cyst.
Dominic had arranged it.
He was carrying out his father’s plan.
The Ward family wanted an heir genetically linked to Nathan but legally controlled by Dominic.
If the baby inherited Sterling assets, both men benefited.
Clara whispered:
“My husband made me carry his father’s child.”
The sentence shattered whatever remained of her marriage.
Then Dr. Samuel Vance, the surgeon who performed the transfer, disappeared.
His office had been emptied.
Security footage showed Dominic entering the clinic the night before.
Police found blood in the laboratory but no body.
Then Nathan called again.
He said:
“Dominic did not arrange the embryo transfer.”
“Who did?”
“You did, Victoria.”
I almost laughed.
Then he sent a video.
Twenty-two years earlier.
I stood inside a fertility clinic signing a donor agreement.
My face.
My voice.
My wedding ring.
May you like
But I had no memory of being there.
Read Chapter 4 to discover why Victoria’s own identity appeared in the clinic archive.
