Chapter 13 - Robert’s Will
Robert Carter's official will left his trucking-company shares to Ethan.
Cash to charity.
Nothing to James except a modest trust.
James had spent years believing it proved Robert valued Ethan more.
The real will was different.
Equal division between sons.
Additional compensation to Helen.
Voting instructions for Larkspur.
And a directive:
Any Carter interest in Larkspur must be used to release disputed reproductive records.
Robert had tried to correct his old silence.
Then died before changing the filed will.
Why did Corinne hide the box?
Morrow.
He intercepted her before she reached Ethan.
He knew the new will could force disclosure.
He offered Corinne information about Noah in exchange for the box.
She agreed.
Again.
Her missing child over someone else's truth.
Ethan could understand desperation without accepting the decision.
Where was the box now?
Corinne thought Morrow destroyed it.
He didn't.
James had it.
Morrow gave it to him years earlier as leverage against Robert's estate.
James kept it because the equal division benefited him.
Then never filed it because doing so would expose his own Larkspur role.
Everyone chose themselves.
The will's legal status was uncertain after so many years.
Rachel's replacement counsel handled it.
Ethan did not fight James over equal inheritance.
“If Dad wanted half to you, take half.”
James stared.
“You're giving me millions.”
“No. I'm not giving you anything. I'm stopping myself from keeping what may already be yours.”
James looked away.
That was the first moment he stopped seeing Ethan as the enemy.
Then Robert's box contained something else.
A letter to Ethan.
Son,
If you've found this, then I failed to do the difficult thing while alive.
Ethan almost laughed.
Robert continued.
Your mother and I let you believe Helen died because we thought family history would only confuse you.
That was cowardice.
Then:
James is angry because I gave you the childhood I owed him too.
Do not apologize for receiving love.
Ethan stopped reading for several minutes.
Then continued.
Maisie does not exist yet as I write this.
But if Larkspur ever touches your future family, do not let biology become another form of ownership.
Ethan stared.
Robert had written the letter before Maisie's birth.
He understood the pattern.
Too late.
Then the final page:
Morrow's greatest secret is not what he did with embryos.
It's who owns Larkspur.
Ethan frowned.
Samuel Reeves founded it.
Apparently not.
Original capital came from a foundation.
Carter-Reeves Family Trust.
Beneficiaries:
Descendants of Robert Carter and Samuel Reeves.
Why would two unrelated men create a joint family trust?
Because they were related.
Robert's mother and Samuel's mother were sisters.
Ethan and the Reeves siblings were cousins.
That explained why so many genetic records had appeared confusingly “familial.”
It also explained why Maisie's father James and mother Melissa shared a distant family connection.
Not close enough to make their relationship legally problematic, but enough to complicate naive DNA interpretation.
Morrow had exploited that ambiguity.
Then the trust document showed something shocking.
Ethan personally owned a voting block.
So did James.
So did Melissa.
So did Daniel.
And one dormant beneficiary:
Corinne Ward.
Ethan stared.
Corinne was related too.
How?
Her mother was another descendant of the same family branch.
Corinne had not married into the Larkspur mess.
She had been born adjacent to it.
Then James whispered:
“Morrow didn't choose Corinne because she was convenient.”
May you like
“What?”
“He chose her because she could inherit.”
