Chapter 6 - The Woman Who Never Miscarried)
Victoria locked the conference room and placed the death certificate on the table between them.
Up close, she looked less triumphant than exhausted. The blue silk dress hid a tremor in her shoulders. Genevieve had spent months imagining this meeting. In prison, she composed speeches sharp enough to cut bone. Now she found she wanted only answers.
“There was no baby,” Genevieve said.
Victoria's eyes flickered. “You cannot prove that.”
“The hospital footage shows you walking before Julian paid Nurse Harrow. Dr. Ward coded an ectopic procedure from a patient in another county. You used another woman's loss.”
“Julian used it.”
The correction was immediate.
Victoria had grown up beside the Vales. Her father ran Ashcroft Shipping and owed Conrad millions. At twenty-two, she loved Adrian. At twenty-four, she testified that he was unstable after his supposed drowning. At thirty-three, she stood in court and told the jury Genevieve had shoved her down marble stairs.
“You cried when they sentenced me,” Genevieve said.
“I was crying for myself.”
Victoria unfastened a diamond bracelet. Purple marks circled her wrist. “Julian records everything. He owns my father's debt, my brother's medical trust, every house my mother has ever lived in. The first time I refused him, he showed me Adrian in that cell.”
“So you helped keep him there.”
“I kept him alive.”
Genevieve did not offer forgiveness. “Why bring the certificate?”
Victoria pushed it across the table. “Because Julian has another copy with the registration seal. He does not need the body now. He only needs the bank to accept the record long enough to transfer the trust.”
Outside, Marcus was telling the guests a technical malfunction had interrupted the screens. Julian's voice rose in the main office, commanding security to search every floor.
Victoria moved closer. “The archive meeting is not a trap for Julian. It is a trap for Adrian. Once the biometric lock opens, Julian will kill him and blame you. Alive or dead, you remain useful.”
“Then help me change the trap.”
Victoria laughed without humor. “You think evidence is enough because you were innocent. Evidence is only a story told by someone with power.”
“Then lend me yours.”
Genevieve gave her a small transmitter. Victoria stared at it. One sentence into the microphone could destroy the lie she had guarded for eighteen months. It could also destroy her family.
The handle rattled. Julian called Victoria's name.
She slipped the transmitter beneath her dress and opened the door. Genevieve disappeared through the service panel seconds before Julian entered.
From the maintenance stairwell, Genevieve listened through an earpiece.
“Was she here?” Julian asked.
“Who?”
The slap was loud enough to distort the signal.
Genevieve stopped descending.
Victoria breathed slowly. “If Genevieve survived, your forged certificate is worthless.”
“Not if she dies before dawn.”
“And Adrian?”
“Marcus will bring him to the bank. Marcus has always obeyed whoever holds the company.”
“You said you would release him.”
Julian's voice softened. “I said what you needed to hear.”
There it was: intent, fraud, knowledge that Adrian lived. But the transmitter captured more.
Victoria asked, “What about the Laurent woman?”
“Celeste will not remember another injection.”
Genevieve descended before rage betrayed her. Eleanor already had a team protecting Celeste, but Julian's casual certainty made the walls seem narrow.
At the lobby, security guards blocked every exit. Genevieve entered a crowded restroom, changed into a catering uniform, and walked through the kitchen carrying a tray. As she reached the loading dock, a hand pulled her behind a stack of linen carts.
It was Nurse Miriam Harrow, the woman Julian had paid in the hospital corridor.
“Do not scream,” Miriam said. “I came to confess.”
She produced a small specimen envelope bearing Victoria's name and an evidence seal.
“The blood from the staircase was not Victoria's. Julian ordered me to switch the labels.”
Genevieve took the envelope. “Whose blood was it?”
May you like
Miriam glanced at the cameras.
“Your mother's.”
