Grant stopped in the doorway.

Elias closed the doors behind them.

“Congratulations,” he said. “You finally found the father.”

PART 3

My father seized the back of a chair. “What is this?”

“The investment meeting you requested,” I said. “Just not the one you expected.”

The screen behind me displayed transfers from Mercer Development into twelve shell corporations. Every payment was connected to an approval, a bank account, and its final recipient.

The color disappeared from Grant’s face. “This information was stolen.”

“No,” said the audit chair. “It was obtained under authority granted after Ms. Mercer filed a protected whistleblower report.”

My mother pointed toward me. “She wants revenge because we disapproved of her pregnancy.”

I pressed a button.

Her recorded voice filled the room: “Sign the shares over, Claire. Elias will leave when he gets bored. When he does, don’t come crawling back with that child.”

The attorney then displayed the transfer agreement they had left beside my hospital bed. It valued my ownership at less than twenty percent of the price Grant had privately arranged with an outside buyer.