Chapter 10 - Celeste’s Child
Ethan thought he had misheard.
“Celeste had a baby?”
Anna nodded slowly.
“I saw her once.”
“When?”
“Twenty-five years ago.”
Ethan stared.
Celeste was forty-three.
She would have been eighteen.
Anna took the photograph.
“That blanket was handmade by Evelyn.”
“Why would Richard be holding Celeste’s child?”
“I don’t know.”
But Celeste did.
Under police questioning, she resisted for nearly an hour.
Then Ethan placed the photograph on the table.
Her face collapsed.
“Where did you get that?”
“Grace.”
Celeste began shaking.
Ethan sat opposite her.
“Who is the baby?”
Celeste closed her eyes.
“My son.”
“Where is he now?”
“I don’t know.”
“How can you not know?”
“Because Richard took him.”
The room went still.
Celeste’s voice broke.
“I was eighteen.”
“My family was poor.”
“Richard was thirty.”
Ethan understood before she continued.
“You were involved with him.”
Celeste nodded.
“He told me he loved me.”
“He told me he would leave everything and build a life with me.”
“When I became pregnant, he changed.”
“What did he do?”
“He convinced me I couldn’t raise the baby.”
“He arranged an adoption.”
“Legal?”
“I thought so.”
“Was it?”
Celeste shook her head.
“I never found the records.”
Ethan felt something shift.
Richard’s control over Celeste had started decades earlier.
Long before the stolen money.
Long before Grace.
“Grace found out?”
“Yes.”
“When?”
“A month before she died.”
“How?”
“She found a payment from Richard to the adoption intermediary.”
“Did she find your son?”
Celeste looked at the photograph.
“She thought she did.”
Ethan leaned closer.
“Who?”
Celeste whispered.
“I don’t know.”
“You’re still lying.”
“No.”
“She refused to tell me until she confirmed it.”
“Then she died.”
Ethan looked toward Mara.
This was no longer only about money.
Grace had uncovered Richard’s personal secrets too.
Celeste wiped her face.
“That was why I met Grace at 2:17.”
“Not just the trust?”
“No.”
“She told me Richard had been manipulating both of us.”
“She promised she would help me find my son.”
“And afterward you helped Richard?”
Celeste laughed bitterly through tears.
“I spent twenty-five years being afraid of him.”
“That doesn’t excuse Sophie.”
“I know.”
Ethan believed that part.
Celeste was a victim in some parts of her life.
She had become an offender in others.
Both could be true.
Mara placed the final trust condition on the table.
“This clause.”
Celeste read it.
Her eyes widened.
The document stated that if any person attempted to establish fraudulent foreign guardianship over Sophie, all international management provisions would automatically become void.
The trust would enter permanent court-supervised protection.
Richard’s entire plan had been legally impossible from the beginning.
Grace had added the clause after discovering his scheme.
Richard did not know.
Ethan almost laughed.
“He kidnapped Sophie for nothing.”
Mara shook her head.
“Not nothing.”
“He still believes destroying this page may help him.”
Celeste looked at Ethan.
“Then he’ll come back.”
“For the page?”
“For Sophie.”
Ethan’s face hardened.
“He won’t get near her.”
“You don’t understand.”
Celeste leaned closer.
“Richard doesn’t lose.”
“He changes the goal.”
“What goal?”
“If he can’t control the Whitlock Trust, he’ll destroy it.”
“How?”
“By proving Grace committed fraud.”
Ethan frowned.
Celeste pointed toward the photograph of the baby.
“Grace used trust money to search for my son.”
“So?”
“If she moved protected assets improperly, Richard can challenge her trusteeship retroactively.”
Ethan stared.
“Did she?”
“I don’t know.”
Mara looked skeptical.
“A few investigative expenses wouldn’t destroy a ninety-six-million-dollar trust.”
Celeste shook her head.
“It wasn’t a few.”
“How much?”
“Six million.”
Ethan went still.
“Grace moved six million dollars?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“I never knew.”
Celeste’s voice dropped.
“Richard believes she used it to buy something.”
“What?”
“A company.”
“Which company?”
“I don’t know.”
Ethan suddenly remembered one of Grace’s folders beneath the mansion.
A file labeled AURORA.
He had ignored it because it contained no recognizable names.
He returned home.
Inside the AURORA folder were incorporation papers.
Six million dollars had purchased a controlling interest in a small cybersecurity company.
The beneficiary owner was not Grace.
It was a trust for an unnamed individual.
Ethan searched the incorporation records.
The current CEO was twenty-six-year-old Lucas Reed.
Ethan stared at the photograph on the company website.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
A familiar jawline.
He placed Richard’s old photograph beside it.
The resemblance was undeniable.
Lucas Reed was almost certainly Celeste’s son.
But another document made Ethan’s blood run cold.
Grace had appointed Lucas as a backup protector of Sophie’s trust.
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Meaning Richard’s long-lost son had authority Richard himself had spent years trying to steal.
And Lucas had no idea who his real parents were.
