Chapter 9 - The Heir Before Khloe
The warehouse became silent.
Khloe’s first thought was that Marcus had a child with Isabella.
She looked at her.
Isabella shook her head immediately.
“No.”
Victoria opened a metal cabinet and removed a photograph.
It showed Marcus at twenty-three standing beside a dark-haired woman in a hospital room. The woman held a newborn wrapped in a blue blanket.
Khloe studied Marcus’s young face.
He was smiling.
Not the controlled smile he used for cameras or investors.
A real smile.
“Who is she?” Khloe asked.
“Her name was Evelyn Cross,” Victoria replied. “She worked in the Vale legal department.”
“Where is the child?”
“Officially, the baby died two days after birth.”
“Officially?”
“The death record was altered.”
Dr. Shaw examined the photograph.
“Was the child treated at St. Aurelia?”
“Yes.”
Isabella looked at Victoria.
“Did Marcus know the baby survived?”
“We believe so.”
Khloe sat slowly.
If Marcus already had a biological child, the trust clause made no sense. The birth of any verified descendant should have transferred control years ago.
“Why did the trust not activate?”
“Because the child’s identity was hidden,” Victoria said. “No genetic verification was submitted.”
“Why would Marcus hide his own heir?”
“Because he was young, and his father still controlled him. An heir would have shifted the company into a protected trust before Marcus had secured his position.”
“What happened to Evelyn?”
“She disappeared.”
Adrian activated one of the monitors.
A timeline appeared showing hospital admissions, shell companies, and altered birth certificates.
“Evelyn tried to expose the Vale network. She contacted Samuel Reed. Three days later, security footage showed her leaving St. Aurelia. No one saw her again.”
Khloe touched the photograph.
“And the baby?”
“Transferred to another facility under a false name.”
Isabella studied the child.
“How old would he be now?”
“Fifteen.”
Khloe looked at Victoria.
“Do you know where he is?”
“We have a possible identity.”
Victoria displayed a school photograph of a teenage boy named Noah Cross.
He lived at a private residential academy funded by the Vale Foundation.
Khloe recognized him.
He had attended a foundation event six months earlier. Marcus had spent most of the evening speaking with him privately.
“Marcus called him a scholarship student.”
“He is more than that,” Victoria said.
Khloe remembered Marcus placing a hand on the boy’s shoulder. She had thought it was kindness.
Now the gesture looked like ownership.
“Why is he trying to control my baby if he already controls Noah?”
“Because Noah is becoming difficult,” Adrian said. “He has started asking about his mother.”
“And if Noah discovers who he is?”
“The trust could recognize him as the oldest heir.”
Khloe understood.
Her baby was not simply Marcus’s path to control.
The baby was his replacement plan.
“If my child is born and Marcus controls the guardianship, he can ignore Noah’s claim.”
Victoria nodded.
“Or eliminate it.”
Khloe felt a fierce protective anger.
“We have to find Noah.”
“We cannot approach him yet,” Adrian warned. “His school is heavily monitored.”
“Then we expose Marcus.”
“Not without the recordings.”
Isabella walked toward the window.
“You keep saying that, but we do not know where Samuel Reed is.”
Victoria handed her a hospital bracelet.
The faded name read CELESTE LAURENT.
Isabella’s mother.
“Samuel visited your mother in the institution three weeks before the fire at his apartment.”
Isabella stared at the bracelet.
“My mother is alive?”
Victoria’s silence answered her.
“Where is she?”
“Marcus moved her two days ago.”
“Where?”
“We do not know.”
Isabella turned toward Khloe.
“He knew I found the archive.”
Khloe reached for her phone.
A new message had arrived from Marcus.
It contained a photograph taken inside the warehouse only seconds earlier.
All five of them were visible.
Below it, Marcus had written:
May you like
BRING ISABELLA BACK TO THE HOSPITAL.
OR NOAH LEARNS WHAT HAPPENED TO HIS MOTHER THE HARD WAY.
