Chapter 2 - Twelve Minutes Before Midnight
Adrian took the folder from Claire with both hands.
Rain hit the plastic cover hard enough to sound like static.
The first page was a bank transfer. Twenty-five thousand dollars from a Hart Capital consulting account to a technician named Peter Keller.
The second page was an email.
The third was a copy of the DNA report Adrian had received seven weeks earlier.
Claire tapped the laboratory name. “Search it.”
Vanessa shook her head. “This is insane.”
Adrian pulled out his phone.
“Adrian.” Vanessa grabbed his sleeve. “You have two hundred people waiting upstairs.”
He searched anyway.
The lab had closed eighteen months ago.
His stomach turned.
Claire watched his face. “That report was created after the lab shut down.”
Vanessa’s voice sharpened. “Anyone can make a fake website, a fake transfer, fake emails—”
Claire reached into the bag again.
A flash drive.
“Then explain this.”
“What is it?” Adrian asked.
“A recording of Vanessa and her father discussing the merger.”
Richard Hart appeared at the doors behind them. Sixty-two, silver-haired, perfectly calm.
“What recording?”
No one answered.
Richard looked at Claire as if she were dirt on expensive shoes. “Miss Dawson, leave before I have you removed.”
Claire smiled without humor. “You should probably hear what’s on the drive before you threaten me.”
Richard’s calm cracked.
That was enough.
Adrian turned to his chief counsel, Martin Ellis, who had just come down from the ballroom. “Stop the signing.”
Martin blinked. “We’re twelve minutes from execution.”
“Stop it.”
Richard stepped forward. “Adrian, don’t be emotional.”
Adrian looked at him. “That sentence usually means someone hopes I won’t look closer.”
Vanessa lowered her voice. “You’re humiliating me.”
Claire snapped, “He left his newborn son in the rain because of you.”
Silence.
The baby stirred.
Adrian’s eyes dropped again.
Claire’s anger trembled now. “You want humiliation? Try begging a man you loved to look at his own child while another woman calls you a liar.”
Adrian flinched.
Martin took the drive and called IT.
Seven minutes later they were inside a private conference room off the ballroom. Claire sat with the baby. Vanessa stood near the wall. Richard refused to sit.
The recording began with static.
Then Vanessa’s voice:
“Once he signs, the voting rights move automatically?”
Richard answered, “Within forty-eight hours.”
“And Adrian?”
“He keeps the title until we decide otherwise.”
Adrian slowly turned toward them.
Then the recording continued.
Vanessa laughed softly.
“And Claire?”
Richard’s answer was clear.
“She won’t matter after we prove the baby isn’t his.”
Adrian stopped the audio.
Nobody moved.
Then Martin’s phone rang.
He answered, listened for three seconds, and went pale.
“What?” Adrian asked.
May you like
Martin looked straight at him.
“The signature packet upstairs isn’t the version our office approved.”
