CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
ALEXANDER
ST. ALDWYN — PRELIMINARY FORENSIC ANALYSIS
I am in the home office reviewing documents for a meeting that is supposed to begin in less than an hour.
On the other side of the door, I can hear Lily talking to Isabella over breakfast, trying to convince her that a strawberry covered in chocolate is still fruit and should therefore be allowed before nine.
The sheer normality of their argument makes the email feel even more threatening.
I commissioned an investigation into the clinic several weeks ago, shortly after Lily’s paternity was confirmed.
I did not do it in search of absolution.
Three old tests stated something biologically incompatible with my daughter’s existence, and I needed to know whether there had been an error, professional incompetence, or information that had simply never reached me.
I chose an independent investigative firm with no previous connection to Thorne Holdings and insisted that no one in my family be informed.
Only Margaret and two external lawyers knew about the investigation.
Even Isabella knew only part of what was being done because, until now, I had nothing concrete to show her.
Now I have forty-seven pages.
I open the file and begin reading. The first paragraphs contain the sort of cautious language lawyers use when they know something is wrong but are not yet prepared to attach a formal accusation to it.
There are references to incomplete records, data transferred between systems, and patient files that were digitized years after the appointments took place.
Several electronic signatures do not correspond with the dates on the reports.
Two identification codes belong to employees who, according to official records, were not on duty on the days the documents were issued.
One sample was entered into the system at two different times, and the files supplied by the clinic do not contain every page listed in the original index.
Any one of those failures could be attributed to administrative disorganization; together, they form a pattern.
I move on to the financial section.
The clinic received regular payments from a company called Merrick Consulting Ltd.
I do not recognize the name, but the investigation includes a corporate ownership chart showing that Merrick belongs to an offshore holding company, which received transfers from another business: RTH Capital Advisory.
I do not need to open the attachment to understand the initials, but I open it anyway and find the full name waiting there.
Richard Thomas Thorne.
My uncle.
For several seconds, I do not move. One hand remains on the mouse while my eyes stay fixed on his name, waiting for the shock to produce some alternative explanation.
Perhaps Richard invested in the clinic. Perhaps there is a financial connection that looks worse than it is.
Perhaps I am doing exactly what I did five years ago and turning suspicion into certainty with dangerous speed.
That last possibility forces me to keep reading.
The first payment was made two days before my second test, and another followed during the week of my third.
The money was classified as consultancy fees even though Merrick had no registered employees and no history of providing medical services.
Within days, part of it was transferred to an account connected to the clinic’s managing director.
The doctor responsible for my final two reports left St. Aldwyn the following year. He now lives abroad and has not responded to the investigators’ first attempts to contact him. They also found an archived copy of a raw laboratory result that does not match the final report sent to me.
I scroll down to the image and find my name, the date of the test, and a sequence of technical figures. Beneath them is the original laboratory conclusion:
Severe oligozoospermia. Detectable residual sperm production.
I read it again, then a third time, because the meaning refuses to settle.
There had not been a complete absence of sperm, and I had not had definitive azoospermia. The likelihood of natural conception had remained extremely low, but it had existed, and Lily is the living proof.
I sink into the chair without remembering making the decision to sit, my heart beating so hard that I can feel my pulse in my throat.
Five years ago, the doctors had been categorical.
They used words such as irreversible, definitive, and impossible.
I received the first diagnosis before I ever met Isabella and built part of my life around that certainty: I would not have children, I would not produce an heir, and the branch of the family represented by my father would end with me.
Richard was beside me through every stage.
He recommended the clinic, arranged the appointment with the specialist, and accompanied me to the final test when I no longer wanted to repeat the process.
He was there on the day I received the definitive result too.
I remember his hand on my shoulder and his grave voice telling me that a man did not need children to leave a legacy.
At the time, I mistook it for affection.
Five years later, Richard was the one who mentioned seeing Isabella at the Beaumont.
He chose the word intimate to describe an interaction he had not witnessed in full, then appeared at our house at the exact moment she was packing a suitcase.
While I threw my pregnant fiancée out, my uncle stood in the hallway wearing the sympathetic expression of a man prepared to help collect the wreckage.
Then came Edmund’s will. If I had no descendants, Marcus was the expected beneficiary of the eighteen percent voting stake.
Richard would not merely have preserved those shares for his own branch of the family.
By convincing me I could never father a child, he would have ensured that no one could threaten that succession.
I stand so abruptly that the chair strikes the wall.
The anger is immediate and clean. I want to drag Richard out of whatever room he is in, put the documents in front of him, and force him to explain every payment.
I want to remove him from the company, freeze his assets, and destroy everything he built using our name.
For the first time since I began to suspect him, I do not have to struggle to imagine his motive.
I pick up my phone and find Richard’s name in my contacts, but my finger stops before I place the call.
On the other side of the door, Lily laughs at something. The sound passes through the wood and cuts through my fury long enough for another thought to surface.
Isabella needs to see this before I make any decision. I will not act alone again and present her with a finished conclusion as though my certainty should be enough, nor will I turn this discovery into another display of power in which she is expected to stand back while I decide what happens next.
I close the file, print a copy, and cancel my meeting with a short message to Margaret. She replies almost immediately, asking whether I received the report.
Yes. Do not take any action until I contact you.
I carry the pages out of the office.
Isabella is sitting at the table with a mug of coffee between her hands. Lily is in front of a bowl of fruit, although the strawberries have been carefully separated on one side of the plate, apparently awaiting chocolate that will never arrive.
“Morning, Dad,” my daughter says. “Mum doesn’t understand nutrition.”
Isabella raises an eyebrow.
“Your daughter believes dipping fruit in chocolate increases its vitamin content.”
“Chocolate comes from a plant,” Lily argues. “You said so.”
On any other morning, I would sit down and let her explain the entire theory. Today I try to answer, but my voice fails on the first attempt.
“It’s a creative argument.”
Isabella notices immediately. Her attention leaves Lily and settles on the pages in my hand, and the lightness disappears from her face.
“What happened?”
I do not want to discuss it in front of Lily or alarm her, but I also cannot pretend everything is normal until breakfast is over.
“I need to speak to you when you can.”
Isabella studies my face, lingering on my clenched jaw.
“Now?”
“It would be better.”
Lily stops trying to capture a strawberry with her spoon.
“Did somebody die?”
The question hits harder than it should. Edmund’s death is still too recent, and I realize Lily has learned to associate certain expressions on adults’ faces with terrible news.
I place the report on the counter, safely out of her sight, and crouch beside her chair.
“No. Nobody died, and nothing has happened to you, your mum, or Grandma. I received some important information about an old problem, and the adults need to talk about it.”
“Is it work?”
“In part.”
She tilts her head.
“You’re angry.”
“I am, but not with you.”
Lily considers that before nodding.
“Okay.”
Isabella stands and kisses the top of her head.
“Finish your breakfast. We’ll be in the office. Call if you need anything.”
“Can I eat the strawberry?”
“You can eat all the strawberries.”
“With chocolate?”
“Without chocolate.”
Lily sighs like someone enduring an intolerable injustice.
I take the report into the office. Isabella follows and closes the door behind her but does not lock it. I have learned to notice gestures like that; Lily still has access to us even when the conversation is serious.
I hand Isabella the pages without preamble.
“The clinic analysis arrived this morning.”
She takes the report but does not begin reading immediately.
“You look like you’re about to break something.”
“I’m trying not to.”
She sits on the sofa beside the window and opens the document. I remain standing near the desk because my body seems incapable of accepting stillness.