Chapter 4 - THE FORGED BETRAYAL
"A hidden safe, a forged signature, and the truth that cost them seven years of agony."
Twenty-four hours later, the DNA results arrived.
Mark sat in his office at Sullivan Systems, staring at the papers. Probability of Paternity: 99.9%. June, Tessa, and Norah were his daughters.
But the medical reports for Anna brought a different kind of dread. The lead doctor, Dr. Aris, stood before Mark’s desk with a highly concerned expression.
"Mr. Sullivan, we stabilized your wife's pneumonia," Dr. Aris said, adjusting his glasses. "But her blood work revealed something highly unusual. We found traces of silver and arsenic compounds in her system. The levels are low, but consistent over a long period. It’s not enough to kill her instantly, but over several years, it would destroy her immune system, making her highly susceptible to respiratory infections."
Mark’s hand gripped the edge of his desk so hard his knuckles turned white. "Are you saying she was being poisoned?"
"It’s highly likely," Dr. Aris admitted. "It looks like environmental exposure, or perhaps something introduced to her medication. Has she been taking any regular supplements or over-the-counter drugs?"
"She had an old bottle of cough medicine," Mark muttered, remembering the empty plastic bottle Norah had mentioned. "My team retrieved her belongings from the apartment. I want that bottle tested immediately."
"Right away, sir."
Once the doctor left, Mark buzzed his head of security, Carter. "Did you secure the files from my mother’s estate?"
"Yes, Mr. Sullivan," Carter replied, entering the office with a dusty black leather binder. Eleanor Sullivan had passed away two years ago, but her personal safe had remained untouched in the family mansion. "We bypassed the security on your mother’s private archives. You were right. There was a file labeled 'Project Pierce'."
Mark snatched the binder and flipped it open.
Inside were bank transfer receipts, forged letters, and a contract. His heart pounded as he read through the documents.
Seven years ago, Eleanor Sullivan had threatened Anna. She had told Anna that Mark’s business was failing because of her—that investors would not trust a CEO associated with a "nobody." Eleanor had presented Anna with a fake contract, forged with Mark’s signature, stating that Mark was paying her five hundred thousand dollars to abort their unborn child and leave the country.
To make the lie believable, Eleanor had doctored a video tape of Mark saying, "I have to get rid of her to save the company." In reality, Mark had been talking about selling his car, but the audio had been cleverly edited.
Anna, heartbroken and believing the man she loved had betrayed her and their unborn babies, fled into hiding. She never took the money. She hid in the slums, changing her name, terrified that if Mark found her, his powerful family would take her children away.
But there was more.
The file contained recent monthly reports from a private investigator hired by Victoria Vance’s family.
Victoria had known exactly where Anna was for the last three years. She had been paying off a local doctor in the slums to prescribe Anna "cough syrups" that were secretly laced with low doses of arsenic to ensure Anna remained too weak to ever seek out Mark or make a recovery.
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Mark’s vision went red.
They hadn't just separated him from the woman he loved. They had systematically tried to murder the mother of his children to keep a corporate merger alive.
