Chapter 3 - THE BOX FROM THE OFFICE
Police reached NexusCore headquarters at 12:08 a.m.
Matthew and Lauren had already left.
Security footage showed them entering the records room.
The camera failed three minutes later.
At 11:51, they exited through the loading garage carrying the archive box and two external hard drives.
Matthew’s attorney called Detective Ortiz before officers finished searching the building.
He claimed Matthew had gone to collect confidential company property after receiving threats from my family.
“He called a lawyer before he called an ambulance,” I said.
My father’s expression hardened.
“He did not call an ambulance at all.”
Arthur traced the black sedan to a townhouse in Brooklyn owned by Lauren.
The Hamptons property tax notice I had found was not her only secret address.
The townhouse had been purchased through a company called Larkspur Family Holdings.
Matthew’s signature appeared on the financing documents.
So did mine.
I had never seen them.
Detective Ortiz requested a warrant.
Until it arrived, officers watched the property.
At 1:17 a.m., Lauren walked outside carrying the cardboard box.
She placed it inside a rideshare vehicle.
Police followed the car to a private document-storage facility.
Lauren entered with a key card and left without the box.
By dawn, investigators had preserved the unit.
The warrant was approved shortly after sunrise.
Inside, they found old NexusCore investor files, employee contracts, private board communications, and original notebooks written in my handwriting.
The notebooks documented the software concept that became NexusCore’s first commercial product.
I had believed they were lost during our move from Queens.
Matthew had stolen them.
A second container held photographs.
Lauren and Matthew at restaurants.
Lauren wearing my grandmother’s necklace.
Matthew holding a baby boy outside the Hamptons house.
The child wore a tiny blue sock.
The same kind I found beneath the passenger seat.
I stared at the photograph until the room around me disappeared.
“How old is he?” I asked.
Arthur examined the date printed on the back.
“Approximately eighteen months.”
Matthew and Lauren had not begun an affair recently.
They had a child together.
My father turned the photograph facedown.
I turned it back.
“I need to see all of it.”
The storage unit contained a private DNA report.
It confirmed Matthew’s paternity.
Beneath the report was a draft guardianship agreement.
If anything happened to Lauren, Matthew would receive custody.
If anything happened to Matthew, the child would inherit a portion of his NexusCore shares.
The agreement contained a note written by Lauren.
“Clare must be removed from cap table before acknowledgment.”
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They did not merely want a hidden family.
They wanted to use the company I built to fund it.
