Chapter 5 - The Original Agreement.
Nolan Rowan refused to explain more over the phone.
He said only that the original agreement had never been destroyed and that Victoria believed it had.
Celeste demanded to know where it was.
Her father ended the call.
The insult on her face lasted only a second before fear replaced it.
"He has never hung up on me."
Adrian stared at the silent phone.
"Tonight seems to be full of firsts."
Mara moved toward her sons.
"I am leaving."
Adrian blocked the path without touching her.
"Not through a hotel where someone prepared four fake airline tickets."
"You don't get to order me around."
"You're right."
His answer surprised her.
"But someone has spent years making decisions for both of us, and I would rather you hate me from inside a secure room than disappear again."
Mara's anger faltered.
Adrian looked at Malcolm.
"Can we get an independent DNA test without involving the company?"
Malcolm nodded.
"Dr. Hana Liu is downstairs for the gala."
"She runs a private genetics lab."
Celeste shook her head.
"Victoria knows her."
"Victoria knows everyone in this hotel," Adrian said.
"That doesn't mean everyone belongs to her."
Hana arrived twenty minutes later carrying a sealed medical kit.
She had delivered discreet tests for powerful families before, but she looked uncomfortable when she saw four identical boys.
Mara insisted on watching every swab get labeled.
Adrian insisted the samples remain with Hana personally.
Celeste filmed the sealing process on her own phone.
Noah asked whether the cotton swab would hurt.
Adrian knelt beside him.
"Not at all."
Noah studied him.
"Have you done it before?"
"No."
"Then how do you know?"
Adrian smiled despite himself.
"Fair point."
Noah allowed the swab anyway.
After Hana left, Mara noticed Adrian still kneeling.
For a moment, she saw the twenty-four-year-old man who once sat on a kitchen floor with her eating burnt pancakes at midnight.
Then she remembered the forged papers and looked away.
Malcolm entered with a tablet.
"We found the human resources director."
"Where?"
"In a locked records room on level twelve."
Mara stared at him.
"Locked in?"
"He says Graham Cole took his access card and told him Mrs. Vale needed privacy."
Adrian's face hardened.
Graham had served Victoria for eighteen years.
He knew every secret elevator and every unmonitored corridor in the hotel.
Malcolm continued.
"We also found something in the HR system."
He turned the tablet around.
Mara's employee profile had been opened fourteen times that evening.
The searches began forty minutes before the boys entered the restroom.
The account used belonged to Nolan Rowan.
Celeste stared at the screen.
"My father isn't even an employee."
"Legal counsel has emergency access," Malcolm said.
Adrian looked toward the windows.
"So Nolan searched Mara's file, Victoria prepared a car, and Graham stole an access card."
Mara wrapped her arms around herself.
"Why tonight?"
No one had an answer until Celeste suddenly froze.
She reached into her champagne gown's hidden pocket and pulled out a small folded card.
"Because of this."
Adrian recognized the embossed invitation to the private board dinner scheduled after the gala.
Celeste opened it.
On the back, in handwriting she had not noticed before, were six words.
IF ADRIAN HAS CHILDREN, VOTE TONIGHT.
Celeste looked up.
"This was in my father's office this afternoon."
Adrian took the card.
"The board was planning something."
Malcolm's phone rang again.
This time, he answered and went completely still.
"Sir, Dr. Liu's car never reached the lab."
Adrian felt the room turn cold.
"Where is she?"
Malcolm looked toward the door.
May you like
"Her car is still in the underground garage."
"And the DNA samples are gone."
