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.”

They left while pretending they still controlled the situation. By that evening, Grant was telling the board that I had trapped a wealthy man and intended to use him to steal the company. Mother called relatives and claimed Elias had demanded a paternity test. Father sent me an email accusing me of breaching my fiduciary responsibilities.

Their carelessness made my work easier.

For three days, I worked from my hospital room while Noah slept nearby. I organized two years of financial records, altered vendor agreements, and messages Grant had erased from the company server without realizing cloud backups still existed.