Chapter 5 - The Pregnancy Claire Erased
Claire had not joined the family while pregnant.
She had joined because she had been pregnant.
Two years earlier, Claire worked as a private nurse.
A fertility clinic hired her for specialized home care.
She met Dr. Kessler's successor.
A man using the name Adrian Kessler.
He offered her extraordinary money to become a gestational surrogate.
Anonymous parents.
Legal paperwork.
Medical screening.
Everything appeared legitimate.
Claire agreed.
Embryo transfer succeeded.
Then strange things began.
She was never allowed to meet the parents.
Ultrasounds were performed privately.
Her blood was collected excessively.
At five months, Claire discovered the donor code:
E.V.
She searched.
Emily Vale.
Dead.
Claire panicked.
The clinic threatened her.
She ran.
Victor first met Claire three months later at a charity event.
She was visibly pregnant.
Claire lied that the father had abandoned her.
The Vale family embraced her socially.
Especially Eleanor.
Why?
Because Eleanor already knew.
“You knew I was carrying Emily's embryo.”
Eleanor whispered:
“I suspected.”
Claire stared.
“You invited me into this house to watch me.”
“Yes.”
Victor felt betrayed from both directions.
Claire gave birth secretly at a private clinic.
She woke after anesthesia.
The baby was gone.
Staff claimed stillbirth.
No body.
No certificate.
Then messages began.
The baby lived.
If Claire exposed the program, she would disappear permanently.
Claire later wore a prosthetic belly because the blackmailer ordered her to maintain the pregnancy publicly.
Why?
So nobody would search for a seven-month-old infant connected to her.
As long as the world thought Claire was still pregnant, the real baby had no public existence.
Lily had accidentally shattered the cover.
Victor looked at Claire differently now.
She had lied.
But not for the reason everyone assumed.
Then Lily returned carrying something.
She had wandered to the greenhouse table.
A silver bracelet.
“Mommy's.”
Victor recognized it.
Emily wore it the night she died.
Eleanor whispered:
“She had it.”
“The woman?”
“Yes.”
The mysterious woman had left it behind.
Inside the bracelet was a micro-SD card.
They played it.
A video.
Emily.
Real Emily.
Recorded six years earlier.
Before her accident.
“If you're watching this, Kessler found me.”
Victor leaned closer.
Emily looked terrified.
“He says Lily isn't Victor's granddaughter.”
The room stopped.
Lily stood beside Victor.
He looked at her.
Emily continued:
“He says they changed the embryo.”
Victor's chest tightened.
Lily was Emily's biological daughter.
Everyone knew that.
But the father—
Emily had always said it was her boyfriend, Nathan Cole.
Nathan died shortly before Lily's birth.
Emily now claimed something happened during fertility treatment.
Someone altered the embryo.
The video corrupted.
Then returned.
“…Victor can never know who Lily's biological father really is.”
Victor slowly sat down.
May you like
The mystery had shifted again.
The child he had spent eight years protecting might carry the key to the entire experiment.
