Chapter 12 - THE LETTERS HE NEVER READ
Ryan opened the first letter with permission from federal investigators.
The date was July 12.
Five years earlier.
My handwriting shook across the page.
Ryan, I know you may hate me right now, but I need you to know I’m pregnant.
He stopped reading.
His eyes filled.
The second letter contained an ultrasound photograph.
Three tiny shapes.
Three heartbeats.
I had written,
The doctor says there are three.
I’m scared.
I wish you were here even though I know you probably don’t want to be.
Ryan pressed his hand over his mouth.
The third letter was written from the hospital after I went into premature labor at twenty-nine weeks.
The boys are alive.
They are small but fighting.
Noah weighs three pounds, eight ounces.
Liam is three pounds, five.
Mason is just under three pounds.
Ryan could not continue.
He handed the letter to Julia and walked outside.
I followed several minutes later.
He stood beside the building with his back to me.
“I was at a yacht launch in Monaco.”
I said nothing.
“The day you wrote that.”
He laughed bitterly.
“I remember because my father told me I needed to stop mourning a woman who had humiliated me.”
“You didn’t know.”
“I chose not to know.”
“That’s different.”
He turned.
“If I had listened to you before the divorce, none of this happens.”
I couldn’t argue.
He wiped his face.
“I missed their birth.”
“The NICU.”
“First steps.”
“First words.”
“Every birthday.”
“Yes.”
He nodded.
“I need to hear that.”
“What?”
“Every consequence.”
“If I start feeling sorry for myself, remind me who actually lived through it.”
I studied him.
“You’re different.”
“Not enough.”
“No.”
“Not enough.”
The investigation accelerated.
Charles was suspended from the board.
Ryan’s true lineage gave him a direct claim to Arthur’s shares.
My original patent records triggered a separate intellectual-property case.
Everything Charles built was beginning to fracture.
Then one person unexpectedly returned.
Dr. Michael Reeves.
He asked to meet me privately.
Ryan offered to leave.
That surprised me too.
Michael was older now.
More tired.
“I owe you an apology.”
“For what?”
“I knew Charles was watching you.”
“Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I did.”
He placed an old phone on the table.
“I sent Ryan evidence two days before your divorce hearing.”
Ryan stared at him.
“I never received it.”
“I know.”
Michael looked toward the door.
“Your father’s office intercepted it.”
On the device was a video.
Charles meeting Victor Sloan.
Handing him the forged photographs.
Ordering him to send them to Ryan.
Then Michael said,
“There’s one thing you still don’t know.”
“Charles didn’t invent Project Orion.”
“Who did?”
Michael looked at Ryan.
May you like
“Your biological father.”
Arthur Harrison Jr.
