Chapter 4 - The Secret Beneath the Baby's NameCassidy felt the room tilt.
“My baby?”
Brendan's voice echoed from the speaker.
“She thinks the baby is mine.”
The unseen person laughed.
Arthur reached for the controls.
“Can you isolate the audio?”
Daniel nodded.
The recording became clearer.
Brendan continued.
“Once Cassidy loses control of the company, the trust collapses.”
The unseen person said:
“And the child?”
Brendan hesitated.
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On whether the child is really mine.”
Cassidy stopped breathing.
Arthur slowly turned toward her.
“Cassidy.”
She raised one hand.
“No.”
Her eyes stayed fixed on the screen.
Brendan was speaking again.
“She never told me.”
“Then you need to find out.”
“How?”
“The hospital.”
Cassidy's heart hammered.
“They think the pregnancy is the leverage.”
Arthur looked stunned.
“What could they possibly know?”
Cassidy did not answer.
Because she suddenly remembered a conversation from six weeks earlier.
Brendan had asked her to change doctors.
She had refused.
He had laughed.
Now she understood.
Someone had been trying to access her medical records.
She stared at the screen.
The hidden voice said:
“If the child is yours, the trust transfers naturally.”
Cassidy's blood turned cold.
“And if it's not?”
“Then the trust remains under the contingency clause.”
Brendan whispered something.
Cassidy leaned closer.
“What?”
The audio captured it.
“Then we eliminate the contingency.”
Arthur froze.
Daniel reached for his weapon.
Cassidy's expression went flat.
“Stop the recording.”
Daniel did.
Arthur turned toward her.
“Who is the contingency?”
Cassidy shook her head.
“No one.”
“Cassidy, somebody just discussed eliminating your unborn child.”
Her hand moved to her stomach.
The baby kicked.
A small movement.
A reminder that the nightmare was no longer about money.
It was about her daughter.
“I need to know who that voice belongs to.”
Arthur nodded.
“We can trace it.”
“Not yet.”
“Why?”
“Because if we expose them now, we lose the advantage.”
Arthur stared at her.
“You've been planning this.”
Cassidy looked back at the frozen screen.
“I've been surviving this.”
A phone rang.
Daniel answered.
Then his expression changed.
“Ma'am, the maternity clinic called.”
Cassidy's heart jumped.
“What happened?”
“They say someone tried to access your file.”
“When?”
“Twenty minutes ago.”
Cassidy looked at Arthur.
“Who?”
Daniel handed over the tablet.
One access request had been made.
The name was hidden.
But the system had logged the authentication source.
Morrison Global.
Arthur's expression hardened.
“Someone inside the company.”
Cassidy nodded.
“Probably someone on the board.”
They left the monitoring room.
As they walked upstairs, Cassidy's phone vibrated.
A message from Brendan.
We need to talk.
She ignored it.
Another message appeared.
It's about the baby.
Cassidy stopped walking.
Arthur saw the screen.
“Don't respond.”
Another message came.
You should know what Victor put in the trust agreement.
Cassidy stared at it.
Then a final message arrived.
He planned for your daughter before she was born.
Cassidy felt her stomach tighten.
Victor had never mentioned a child.
He had never even known whether Cassidy would become pregnant.
Unless...
Unless the contingency had never been about ownership.
It had been about inheritance.
Cassidy reached the executive office.
Arthur opened the vault.
Inside was the original trust.
Cassidy unfolded the papers.
She scanned page after page.
Then she reached the final clause.
Her hands stopped.
Arthur read beside her.
“Upon the birth of Cassidy Ellison's first child...”
Cassidy swallowed.
The clause continued.
“The child shall become the irrevocable second beneficiary.”
Arthur stared.
“That isn't all.”
Below it was another sentence.
“Should the child be born outside the Morrison bloodline, emergency succession shall be activated.”
Cassidy's face drained of color.
“What does that mean?”
Arthur looked at the document.
“I don't know.”
Then Daniel entered.
He was carrying another folder.
“Ma'am.”
“What?”
“We found the original DNA authorization.”
Cassidy stared at him.
“For what?”
Daniel placed the folder on the desk.
“For your daughter.”
Cassidy opened it.
The authorization had been signed three months earlier.
Not by Cassidy.
Not by Brendan.
By Diane Morrison.
Cassidy's fingers went numb.
“She ordered a DNA test before the baby was born?”
Daniel nodded.
“And there's something else.”
“What?”
“The laboratory that received the order doesn't exist anymore.”
Cassidy looked up.
Arthur's face had gone pale.
“Someone didn't want the results.”
Cassidy closed the folder.
“No.”
She looked toward the dark window.
“They wanted the results.”
Arthur frowned.
“Then why destroy the lab?”
Cassidy finally understood.
Because the result wasn't meant to prove who the father was.
It was meant to prove who the mother was.
And that was the one secret Cassidy had kept from everyone.
Not even Brendan knew the truth about her bloodline.
She wasn't just the woman who owned Morrison Global.
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She was the last living member of a family that Victor Morrison had feared for decades.
And someone had just started digging into it.
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