Chapter 9 - Victoria’s Last Bargain
Clara refused to run.
That frightened everyone around her.
Federal agents wanted relocation.
A secure facility.
New identities.
Clara listened.
Then said,
“No.”
I expected fear.
Instead, I saw anger.
“I spent four years being moved because someone else decided where I belonged.”
She looked at the federal agent.
“I’m not doing it voluntarily now.”
The agent tried again.
“Mrs. Vale, Victoria Sterling is dangerous.”
“I know her better than you.”
That ended the argument.
At noon, a package arrived at the federal field office.
No fingerprints.
No return address.
Inside was a white phone.
It rang the moment Clara touched it.
Victoria.
“Hello, Clara.”
Agents began tracing.
Clara placed the phone on speaker.
“What do you want?”
“You know.”
“No.”
“The original copy.”
“It’s federal evidence.”
“Not the ledger.”
Victoria sounded amused.
“The other file.”
Clara’s face changed.
I noticed.
Victoria noticed too.
“There.”
“You remember.”
“What file?”
I asked.
Clara closed her eyes.
“Project Heir.”
Silence.
I stared.
Victoria laughed.
“Your husband still doesn’t know.”
“Shut up.”
“No.”
“You’ve had four years to tell him.”
“Tell me what?”
Clara looked at me.
“I found another folder.”
The night she discovered Meridian, there had been a separate encrypted directory.
PROJECT HEIR.
Names.
Medical records.
Genetic tests.
Succession plans.
My name.
Clara’s name.
And hundreds of fertility records.
“What the hell was my father doing?”
Victoria answered.
“Building continuity.”
I felt nauseated.
Alexander believed organizations failed when leadership became unpredictable.
So he had spent years collecting genetic material, medical data and family information from powerful members of Meridian.
Insurance against disease.
Paternity disputes.
Succession conflicts.
Blackmail.
And, perhaps, something worse.
Clara whispered,
“Your father had embryos stored.”
I stopped breathing.
“Ours?”
She nodded.
Years earlier, Clara and I had gone through fertility testing after struggling to conceive.
We were told all samples had been destroyed after we decided to stop treatment.
Apparently they had not been.
Victoria said softly,
“Now you understand why I need the file.”
“Why?”
“Because one child was born.”
Every person in the room froze.
I looked at Clara.
She looked equally shocked.
“What child?”
Victoria gave an address.
Then disconnected.
The address belonged to a private children’s foundation in Vermont.
Agents raided it within hours.
No children were harmed.
The facility itself was legitimate.
But records revealed an anonymous trust had been paying expenses for one boy.
Six years old.
Name: Noah Reed.
Genetic testing was ordered.
I barely slept.
Clara barely spoke.
Forty-eight hours later, results arrived.
Noah was not our biological child.
He was Victoria’s.
And my father’s chosen “heir” had never been about blood.
Victoria had created the story to lure Clara toward the file.
The real Project Heir archive contained something else.
Lists of children of Meridian members.
Schools.
Medical histories.
Addresses.
Leverage for another generation.
Victoria wanted it because it could buy her protection from anyone still loyal to Meridian.
Clara remembered hiding the encrypted copy somewhere Alexander would never search.
Her childhood home.
We traveled with federal protection.
The house belonged to strangers now.
After warrants and explanations, agents opened an old sealed wall beneath the attic stairs.
Inside sat a yellow metal box.
Clara had hidden it there two days before she vanished.
The drive was intact.
So was a handwritten letter.
Not Clara’s.
Victoria’s.
Written four years earlier.
CLARA,
IF YOU FIND THIS BEFORE THEY FIND YOU, RUN.
ALEXANDER KNOWS.
I’M SORRY.
V.
I stared at the letter.
Clara sat down.
Victoria had tried to warn her.
“Why would she do that?”
Clara whispered.
I thought about everything we had seen.
Victoria’s cruelty.
Jealousy.
Fear.
Her comment that Clara “wasn’t exactly innocent.”
The relationship between them was still missing a piece.
Then an agent entered.
“We found Victoria.”
“Where?”
“Hospital.”
“What happened?”
“She walked into an emergency room twenty minutes ago.”
“Why?”
The agent looked at Clara.
May you like
“She says she’ll surrender.”
“But only if Clara comes alone.”
