Chapter 12 - Victoria Voss
Victoria Voss was forty-two.
The biological daughter of Glen and Gabriel’s adoptive parents.
She grew up resenting the twins.
Not because they were adopted.
Because they inherited attention, family money, and eventually voting shares she believed belonged to her.
When Gabriel disappeared, Victoria gained influence.
When Glen married me, she moved to Europe.
Or supposedly.
Corporate travel showed her returning repeatedly.
She had access to Glen’s token.
Clara’s old signature files.
Bell’s foundation records.
And most important:
she knew Project Ariel.
Her parents had been early Bell clients.
Why was she testing my daughter?
Gabriel believed she suspected Ariel activated my mother’s evidence trust.
But the trust contained evidence, not money.
Then we discovered a linked civil claim.
If Bell’s fraud was proven, dozens of fertility cases could reopen inheritance disputes.
Including the Voss estate.
Victoria’s parents had altered adoption documents for Glen and Gabriel.
If those adoptions were ruled fraudulent, portions of the estate might revert.
To Victoria.
She had a financial incentive to expose Bell.
So why hide?
Because she wanted control over which evidence emerged.
Enough to invalidate the twins.
Not enough to expose her parents.
That was sophisticated.
Then Victoria contacted me herself.
“I’m not your enemy.”
I almost laughed.
“You entered my daughter’s medical records.”
“I verified a risk.”
“What risk?”
“That Gabriel might be Ariel’s biological father.”
Glen stiffened.
I said:
“We already know standard testing can’t distinguish identical twins.”
“Standard testing.”
She emphasized it.
Advanced sequencing could sometimes distinguish rare post-zygotic mutations between identical twins.
Victoria claimed she had ordered it.
Without consent.
Criminally invasive.
But potentially definitive.
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel visited Megan before he disappeared.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
Glen turned.
“Megan?”
I stared at Gabriel.
He looked confused.
Then remembered.
The photograph.
I was six.
Not romantic.
Victoria smiled through the phone.
“Not then.”
She meant eight years ago.
Before I met Glen.
Gabriel had returned secretly once.
He attended the same fundraiser where Glen and I later met.
Did I meet him?
I searched memory.
A man who looked like Glen.
Maybe.
A brief conversation near the bar.
I had assumed later it was Glen.
My stomach turned.
“Did Gabriel and I—”
“No.”
Gabriel answered immediately.
“We spoke for three minutes. That’s all.”
Evidence later supported him through dated travel records.
Victoria had tried to create suspicion.
Why?
To fracture us.
She wanted Glen emotionally unstable before litigation.
Then she sent the sequencing result.
Glen was Ariel’s biological father.
Not Gabriel.
Relief hit us both.
But beneath the report was another line.
Maternal relationship anomaly detected.
I froze.
“What anomaly?”
Ariel was unquestionably my biological daughter.
But the lab found one inherited sequence that did not align with my known maternal lineage.
May you like
Meaning my mother—Claire—might not have been my biological mother either.
The family secret was about to restart from the beginning.
