The moment the nurse carried my newborn into recovery, my mother recoiled. “We will never acknowledge a fatherless child,” she said. My father folded his arms. “And we will never hold that baby.”

“No,” said the audit chair. “It was obtained under authority granted after Ms. Mercer filed a protected whistleblower report.”

My mother pointed toward me. “She wants revenge because we disapproved of her pregnancy.”

I pressed a button.

Her recorded voice filled the room: “Sign the shares over, Claire. Elias will leave when he gets bored. When he does, don’t come crawling back with that child.”

The attorney then displayed the transfer agreement they had left beside my hospital bed. It valued my ownership at less than twenty percent of the price Grant had privately arranged with an outside buyer.