Chapter 3 - The Shadow of Sterling Bio-Tech
At 8:30 PM, the storm raged outside as I sat in my dark oak library, reviewing encrypted digital files on my laptop.
My chief of private intelligence, Marcus Reyes, stood before my desk, projecting financial flow charts onto the wall monitor.
"We ran the security footage from the perimeter cameras on the south boundary road, Nathan," Marcus reported. "At 8:45 this morning, a black Audi registered to Sterling Bio-Innovations stopped near the drainage culvert for forty seconds."
"Sterling Bio-Innovations?" I asked, my eyes narrowing. "That company was supposed to be dissolved when Clara died three years ago."
"It wasn't dissolved," Marcus revealed, tapping the keyboard. "Clara’s younger sister, Victoria Sterling, assumed executive control of the remaining patent portfolio. Over the last eighteen months, Victoria has been bleeding cash through high-risk offshore biotech ventures in the Cayman Islands."
Marcus brought up Clara’s probate records and the original Carter trust agreements from twelve years ago.
"Here is the motive, Nathan," Marcus said grimly. "When you created your biological preservation trust twelve years ago, you signed a clause stipulating that if a living biological heir were ever born from your preserved genetic material, eighty percent of the Carter Bio-Logistics patent royalties—currently valued at over four hundred million dollars—would immediately vest into a blind trust administered exclusively by the child's guardian."
A chilling clarity settled over my mind.
"Victoria found Clara’s frozen embryos in Zurich," I realized, the horror making my voice drop to a whisper. "She paid an underground clinic in Europe to carry the pregnancy to term using a surrogate, intending to claim the child, declare herself the legal trustee, and seize four hundred million dollars of my company's equity."
"Exactly," Marcus confirmed. "But three days ago, your corporate legal team filed a patent injunction that completely froze all secondary royalty dispersals to the Sterling trust. Victoria realized she couldn't legally access the funds without proving your death or incapacity. The baby became an active liability linking her to illegal human reproductive cloning and fraud."
"So she tried to dispose of the evidence behind my wall," I growled, my fists clenching on the desk with volcanic rage.
"She didn't count on a seven-year-old girl finding the child first," Marcus said.
Before I could answer, my private phone buzzed on the desk.
It was Dr. Harrison.
May you like
I hit speakerphone. "Harrison. Tell me."
"Nathan," Dr. Harrison’s voice resonated through the speakers with absolute scientific certainty. "The 24-locus STR profile is complete. The probability of biological paternity between you and baby Leo is 99.9998%. He is your biological son."
