Then one of them, a narrow-faced man named Mr. Bell, asked Grant directly, “Were you aware that filing during Ms. Avery’s medical incapacity would trigger Article Twelve?”
Grant’s jaw tightened. “No.”
Vivian shifted beside him.
Eleanor noticed. So did I.
Mr. Bell turned to her. “Ms. Vale, did you have any involvement in preparing or submitting documents related to the divorce?”
Grant spoke immediately. “Vivian is not part of this.”
“Then she should have no difficulty answering,” Eleanor said.
Vivian’s lips parted, then closed.
Grant’s attorney intervened. “My client’s personal relationships are irrelevant.”
“Not if someone outside counsel accessed hospital or court records,” Eleanor replied.
The hospital counsel representative cleared her throat. “We can confirm an unauthorized attempt was made to view neonatal records from an external device. The matter is under internal review.”
Vivian went pale.
Grant turned to her slowly.
It was the first time I saw uncertainty on his face.
“Vivian?” he said.
She looked at him, eyes bright. “I told you I was helping.”
“Helping with what?”
She did not answer.
The room on the screen seemed to hold its breath.
Then Eleanor said, “We have reason to believe Baby C’s birth record was altered or left incomplete intentionally.”
Grant stood so abruptly his chair rolled back.
“What?”
His shock looked real.
I hated that it looked real.
Because if Grant had not known, then the shape of the betrayal was changing. Not shrinking. Changing.
Vivian’s face crumpled for one brief second before she controlled it.
“You don’t understand,” she said.
Grant stared at her. “What did you do?”
Vivian looked toward the camera, directly at me.
And in her expression, I saw not cruelty, but fear.
“Adelaide promised the controlling share would never pass through Grant if there was a daughter,” she said.
The words struck the meeting like a dropped glass.
Eleanor went still.
Grant’s face drained of color.
“What are you talking about?” he demanded.
Vivian’s voice shook now. “The amendment. The last amendment. If a female direct descendant was born within the marriage, and if Grant was found to have violated the conduct clause, then protective control would consolidate through the daughter’s guardian until she came of age.”
Elise.
My tiny sleeping daughter.
The third child.
Grant looked as if he had been slapped. “How did you know that?”
Vivian’s eyes filled with tears she seemed determined not to shed. “Because I found Adelaide’s private memorandum in your father’s archive.”
Every face on the screen changed.
Grant’s father had died years earlier. His papers had been sealed, stored, and fought over quietly by people who used words like archive when they meant secrets.
“You told me the divorce needed to happen before the children were fully registered,” Grant said slowly.
