Chapter 5 - The File on the Screen
Victor sat in the rear seat of the parked SUV, the engine idling loudly to keep the heater running against the mounting blizzard outside.
Marcus stood guard twenty feet away near the tree line, leaving Victor entirely alone in the dim interior of the vehicle.
Victor plugged the silver USB drive into his laptop screen.
A single video file appeared on the desktop, labeled simply: STATEMENT_NORA.MP4.
He clicked the file.
The screen flickered, then resolved into a bright, plain room with off-white walls. Nora sat in a simple wooden chair, holding a four-month-old Leo against her shoulder while Mia slept soundly in a portable bassinet beside her.
Nora looked exhausted. Dark circles hung under her hazel eyes, her dark hair pulled back into a hasty, messy bun. But beneath her physical fatigue lay a quiet, cold clarity that Victor had never seen in her during their four years of marriage.
"Hello, Victor," Nora’s voice came softly through the laptop speakers.
Victor touched the glass screen with his fingers, his throat tightening.
"If you are watching this video," Nora continued, looking directly into the camera lens, "it means you followed Arthur's trail to Lake Geneva. It means you are still trying to control the outcome of a game you lost three months ago."
She shifted Leo slightly, gently patting the infant's tiny back.
"I didn't leave because of Sylvia, Victor," Nora said, her voice completely flat, devoid of any anger or jealousy. "I've known about Sylvia for six months. I knew about the apartment in River North. I knew about the receipts from the jewelry store on Michigan Avenue. I stayed because I thought you were just a foolish, arrogant man who had lost his way."
Victor closed his eyes, a sharp pang of shame cutting through his chest like a knife.
"I stayed because I believed that despite your flaws, despite the dangerous world you live in, you were a man who protected his family above all else," Nora said softly. "I believed that the children in my arms were the center of your world."
She paused, taking a long, shuddering breath.
"Then two weeks ago, I found the confidential medical files in your private study safe," Nora said, her eyes darkening on the screen. "The ones from the fertility clinic in Zurich. The ones dated five years ago—before we even met."
Victor’s breath hitched in his throat. His entire body went completely rigid.
Zurich.
"You told me our twins were conceived through emergency IVF after two years of trying," Nora whispered, her eyes burning through the screen. "You told me the donors were completely anonymous. But those files weren't anonymous donor records, Victor."
She leaned closer to the camera.
"Those children in my arms aren't just your biological son and daughter, Victor," Nora said, her voice trembling with a terrifying mix of horror and sorrow. "They are the biological children of your late brother, Julian—conceived from frozen genetic material harvested three days before his car accident six years ago."
Victor felt the air leave his lungs entirely.
"You didn't want a family with me, Victor," Nora said, tears finally spilling over her eyelashes on the screen. "You wanted an heir to the Rinaldi estate that carried Julian's pure genetic line to satisfy your father's will. You used my body, my uterus, my tears, and my blood to gestate your dead brother's children so you could secure ninety percent of the family trust before your thirty-seventh birthday."
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The video paused for two long seconds as Nora wiped her face with the back of her sleeve.
"You turned me into an incubator for a ghost, Victor," she whispered. "And you didn't even have the decency to tell me who I was bringing into this world."
