Chapter 6 - Victoria's Version
Victoria Reed arrived at the mansion the next afternoon.
She was forty-two now.
Elegant.
Composed.
And visibly angry before anyone spoke.
She looked at Lily only once.
That single look contained grief.
Recognition.
And fear.
Maria noticed.
So did Ethan.
“Did you arrange Anna’s pregnancy?”
“No.”
“Did your father?”
“No.”
“Then why did your family trust pay Anna?”
“Because she was carrying Sophie’s child.”
Ethan leaned forward.
“You knew.”
“After the transfer.”
“Who authorized it?”
Victoria looked at Eleanor.
“I assumed Margaret.”
Eleanor stiffened.
“Why me?”
“Because Margaret asked me for access to the embryo.”
Three years after Sophie died, Margaret approached Victoria.
She said Ethan had fallen into a depression.
He had destroyed everything connected to his fertility plans.
But Sophie had left one embryo genetically unrelated to Ethan.
Margaret wanted it released.
Victoria refused.
“Why would my mother want Sophie’s child if it wasn't mine?”
“She said Sophie had made a promise.”
“What promise?”
Victoria did not know.
Margaret produced a handwritten note.
If I can't carry her, find someone kind who can.
Signed Sophie.
That sounded like permission.
Victoria authorized release of Embryo 6.
Anna became the gestational carrier.
Then Victoria discovered something.
The note was genuine.
The sentence was not.
Sophie had written those words in a letter about a dog she had rescued.
Margaret removed the surrounding page.
Used the sentence to make it look like reproductive consent.
Ethan felt physically ill.
His mother had manipulated a dead woman’s words.
“Why didn't you stop the pregnancy?”
“By the time I discovered it, Anna was seven months pregnant.”
“Why not tell me?”
“Margaret begged me.”
“And you listened?”
Victoria’s face tightened.
“I was ashamed that I authorized it.”
Again, shame created silence.
Again, silence passed the cost to a child.
But Margaret’s motive still made no sense.
She could not create Ethan’s child from an embryo that carried no Ethan DNA.
Why choose Embryo 6?
Victoria had asked the same question.
Margaret answered:
“Because Ethan can never know who R-17 is.”
That sounded like protection.
But protection from what?
Victoria had tried to identify donor R-17.
The records were sealed by Malcolm Reed.
She found one clue.
R-17 was not an anonymous sperm donor.
He was a known individual.
His sample had been stored for medical reasons.
And Sophie herself had requested the embryo.
Ethan stared.
“Then Sophie knew the father.”
“Yes.”
“Was she having an affair?”
“I don't know.”
Victoria’s expression softened.
“But I never believed that.”
“Why?”
“Because three days before she created Embryo 6, she called me crying.”
“What did she say?”
Victoria remembered every word.
“Dad finally told me what happened when I was sixteen.”
Ethan frowned.
“What happened when she was sixteen?”
“She wouldn't tell me.”
Sophie had then asked Victoria something bizarre.
“If a child was created to prove a crime, would you destroy it?”
Victoria thought Sophie was speaking hypothetically.
Now she knew she had not been.
Embryo 6 was not about romance.
It was evidence.
Biological evidence.
Of something Sophie learned about her own past.
Then Lily wandered into the doorway carrying a picture.
“Mr. Ethan?”
Everyone turned.
She held an old photograph Maria had allowed her to bring.
“Mommy Anna.”
It showed pregnant Anna beside Margaret.
Behind them was a man.
Only half his face visible.
Victoria stood abruptly.
“Where did you get that?”
Lily recoiled.
Maria took the photograph.
“Who is he?”
Victoria stared at the man.
“My father.”
Dr. Malcolm Reed.
The man who supposedly never knew Anna.
May you like
The man whose clinic records concealed R-17.
And the man who had personally attended the pregnancy he later claimed not to know existed.
