Chapter 9 - The Fifteen-Million-Dollar Baby
Grant hated the trust immediately.
Not because of the money.
Because Noah had been assigned a financial purpose before he existed.
Charles created the trust after learning Nathan was not biologically his.
The Mercer bloodline obsession intensified.
Grant became Charles's only acknowledged biological son.
Charles wanted a grandson.
Male.
Biological.
Mercer.
The trust would activate when Grant produced one.
Grant felt disgusted.
Noah was twelve months old and already carrying generations of dead men's insecurity.
Then the lawyers found a condition.
If Grant had no biological son by age forty-one, the money passed to Haven Bridge.
Grant was forty.
Caroline became pregnant when he was thirty-eight.
Suddenly Grant understood why she questioned Noah's fertility records.
Not because she feared Noah wasn't theirs.
Because she feared someone had manipulated treatment to ensure a male heir existed before the deadline.
Did they?
Embryology records showed multiple viable embryos.
The clinic transferred one selected through standard medical criteria.
Sex-selection testing had been performed.
Grant and Caroline had not requested it.
Who did?
The authorization contained Charles Mercer's signature.
But Charles was dead before the transfer.
Forged.
By whom?
David Cross denied it.
Vivienne denied it.
Tessa had no access.
Then investigators found the IP address.
Caroline.
Grant stared.
His wife had authorized the genetic report under Charles's old account.
Why?
Tessa knew.
Caroline discovered the $15 million trust during treatment.
She was furious.
Then she became afraid.
Grant's company was experiencing financial problems at the time.
Caroline feared Grant might secretly prefer a male embryo if he knew.
So she accessed the report herself.
She learned embryo four was male.
Then instructed the clinic:
Do not disclose sex to Grant.
Transfer based only on medical ranking.
Embryo four happened to rank highest.
Noah.
So nobody engineered his sex.
But Caroline kept the trust secret.
Why?
She wanted to see what Grant would choose without knowing money was attached.
Grant felt insulted.
Then ashamed.
Because he couldn't honestly say what he would have done at thirty-eight with his company struggling.
Maybe nothing.
Maybe temptation.
Caroline had not trusted him enough to find out.
The $15 million had activated when Noah was born.
Where was it?
Still untouched.
Grant immediately petitioned to restructure it for Noah's benefit without sex-based succession provisions.
Lawyers warned it would take time.
Fine.
Then Nathan noticed something.
Charles's trust required a “verified Mercer male descendant.”
Yet Nathan's old account had been removed because Charles claimed Nathan wasn't biologically Mercer.
Someone had used genetics selectively.
Blood mattered when it protected money.
Legal parenthood mattered when blood became inconvenient.
Nathan said:
“Our father built a religion out of whichever definition helped him that day.”
Grant couldn't argue.
Then the restitution team found the two unresolved dormant trusts.
One belonged to a child named Emily Cross.
Grant looked at Vivienne.
“Cross?”
Vivienne went pale.
Emily Cross.
Born sixteen years earlier.
Mother:
Vivienne Cross.
May you like
Grant stared.
Vivienne had never told him she had a daughter.
