He pulled out a stack of pristine, unstamped documents.

“These are the off-site archive records,” Julian said, his eyes scanning the first page. “The ones my father kept on a private server.”

“Give those to me,” Margaret demanded, reaching out her hand.

Ethan caught her wrist, his grip surprisingly firm.

“Mother, stop,” Ethan said.

“Ethan, let go of me,” she hissed, glaring at him.

“No,” Ethan said, his voice shaking. “I want to know what’s in there.”

Samuel took the documents from Julian and laid them flat on the reception desk.

The desk was cold, gray marble, reflecting the bright overhead lights.

I leaned over Samuel’s shoulder, my heart hammering against my ribs.

“Look at the original surrogacy agreement,” Samuel said, his finger tracing down a page.

It was the contract Olivia had signed three years ago when she agreed to carry my embryo.

The pages were clean, free of the redactions we had seen in the court-filed copies.

“This is the forged version,” I whispered, recognizing my own forged signature at the bottom.

“Yes, but look at the appendix,” Samuel said.