Chapter 17 - The Swiss Ledger
I waited until two in the morning, when Khloe’s breathing settled into the heavy cadence of deep sleep.
Downstairs in the dark kitchen, illuminated only by the faint green glare of my laptop screen, I plugged the micro-SD card into an encrypted adapter. My hands were sweating. I kept glancing toward the baby monitor on the counter; its little green light blinked in silence.
The drive contained three files. No folders, no passwords.
The first was a scanned PDF of a document stamped with the seal of a private biomedical facility outside Zurich: *Geneva Cryo-Vaults International*. The account holder was listed under Anthony’s personal holding company—the very shell corporation Isabella and Catherine had spent months fighting over in probate.
But this document wasn’t dated from five years ago when Anthony first fell ill.
The date was eleven months ago. Two weeks before Anthony suffered the massive stroke that killed him.
My breath caught as my eyes scanned down to the itemized inventory.
*Specimen ID: H-9021. Genetic Source A: Anthony Vance. Genetic Source B: Unidentified Donor / Third Party Contract.*
*Current Status: Active Cryo-Preservation. Legal Guardian Nominee: Secondary Lineage Clause.*
I opened the second file. It was an audio memo, only forty seconds long. I clicked play, turning the volume down so low I had to press my ear against the laptop’s speaker grille.
Anthony’s voice came through, raspy, strained, punctuated by the mechanical hiss of an oxygen concentrator.
*"If you’re listening to this, Isabella... you were smart enough to check the hem. Or Khloe was. I couldn’t tell either of you while I was lucid. Catherine thinks she owns the board now. She thinks because she held the hospital proxy, she holds the future. She doesn't know about Zurich. If anything happens to Nathan—if Khloe’s boy inherits the primary trust—Catherine’s partners will trigger the default. You have to liquidate 409 before the probate seal expires at the end of the month. Protect your sister. For once in your miserable life, protect your sister."*
The recording clicked off. Static hummed in my ear.
My stomach dropped through the floorboards.
The battle in the probate court hadn’t been about Anthony’s legacy or the embryos Catherine possessed at St. Jude’s. That had all been a front—a loud, public distraction while Catherine and her unseen financial backers maneuvered to control something far more dangerous.
A second child. An unacknowledged heir frozen halfway across the world, tied to a clause that could strip Nathan of everything, including his legal identity.
A floorboard creaked above me.
I slammed the laptop shut just as the soft patter of bare feet came down the stairs. Khloe stood at the threshold of the kitchen, clutching her robe around her chest.
"Mark?" she whispered, squinting into the gloom. "Why are you sitting in the dark?"
I looked at the closed laptop, then at the wife who had almost bled to death on a hospital linoleum floor because of her family's twisted games.
"I couldn't sleep," I said.
She walked over, placing a cold hand against the nape of my neck. "Is it Isabella’s blanket? You looked strange earlier."
"Khloe," I said, my voice shaking despite every ounce of willpower I had. "Did your father ever travel to Switzerland the month before his stroke?"
May you like
Khloe froze. Her hand dropped from my neck, her eyes widening in the dim ambient light. "How do you know about Switzerland?"
***
