CHAPTER 8 — THE PREGNANCY THAT NEVER EXISTED
Adrian ordered an independent medical examination.
Isabella refused.
Her attorneys claimed the request was harassment.
Marcus publicly offered to take any DNA test required.
Richard advised him to remain silent.
Marcus ignored him.
For three days, Isabella allowed the press to believe she was carrying the next Thorne heir.
Then a nurse contacted Adrian anonymously.
She had processed Isabella’s blood sample.
But the sample in the official laboratory report was not Isabella’s.
It belonged to another pregnant patient whose medical file had been copied without permission.
Adrian confronted the laboratory director.
The man denied everything until police showed him the payment deposited into his wife’s account.
He confessed within an hour.
Isabella was not pregnant.
Richard’s legal team had ordered the false report to humiliate Khloe, destroy Marcus’s credibility, and delay the transfer of voting control.
The revelation turned the public against Isabella overnight.
Reporters surrounded her apartment.
Former friends leaked recordings of her insulting Khloe.
Sponsors abandoned her family’s fashion company.
Yet Isabella still refused to confess who had ordered the hospital attack.
Khloe was finally allowed to hold her daughter for the first time.
The baby rested against her chest beneath a warm blanket.
Khloe named her Ava Rose Thorne.
Marcus watched through the NICU glass.
He did not ask to enter.
He knew he had not earned that moment.
Later, Khloe allowed him five minutes beside the incubator.
“She has your mouth,” Marcus whispered.
“She has my father’s eyes.”
“I’ll spend the rest of my life making this right.”
Khloe looked at him.
“You cannot repair honesty with promises.”
“What can I do?”
“Tell the truth before someone forces you to.”
Marcus nodded.
Then he placed a small encrypted drive on the table.
“I copied this from my father’s private office.”
“What is it?”
“Financial records. Security payments. Everything I could access.”
Adrian opened the files.
One folder was labeled CONTINGENCY TWO.
Inside were photographs of Khloe’s usual route from the hospital to her home.
There were diagrams of her armored vehicle.
And there was a payment to the company responsible for maintaining its brakes.
The attack in the suite had failed.
The attempt in the NICU had failed.
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Richard had already prepared a third plan.
Khloe was scheduled to leave the hospital the following morning.
