Chapter 5 - SIMON VOSS
Simon Voss left behind three suits, twelve bottles of wine, a half-read biography of Winston Churchill, and an empty safe.
Detective Ortiz called that combination “a man who packed for disappearance, not travel.”
Damian called it proof of guilt.
Ortiz corrected him.
“Evidence of fear.”
“Fear of what?”
“That’s what we find.”
Damian hated how often the detective refused to give him the emotional certainty he wanted.
He also trusted her because of it.
Simon’s office sat on the thirty-second floor of Blackwood Tower.
Damian had visited it hundreds of times.
Birthdays.
Trust meetings.
Estate planning.
Board disputes.
Simon knew where every Blackwood secret was buried because the family had paid him to manage the cemetery.
Ortiz entered with a forensic team.
Richard came too.
Damian almost objected.
Then decided his father had earned the right to witness the dismantling of the secrecy he helped preserve.
Simon’s office looked untouched.
Leather chairs.
Dark wood.
Framed law degrees.
And, as Eleanor had said, one old medical diploma from twenty-five years earlier.
Simon Voss, M.D.
Damian stared.
“How did I never notice that?”
Richard answered.
“Because you weren’t looking.”
That sentence hurt more than Richard intended.
Maybe because it was true.
They opened file cabinets.
Most Blackwood records were pristine.
Too pristine.
No handwritten notes.
No drafts.
No accidental paper.
Then Ortiz found a locked storage drawer beneath the credenza.
Inside sat one envelope.
DAMIAN — ORIGIN.
Damian stopped breathing.
Richard whispered,
“Open it.”
Ortiz put on gloves.
Inside were photocopies of the 1989 fertility logs.
A letter from Dr. Samuel Voss to Richard.
And a private paternity analysis dated 1991.
Damian stared.
“You tested me.”
Richard went white.
“No.”
The report showed Richard Blackwood excluded as biological father.
Eleanor confirmed biological maternity.
Unknown paternal donor.
Damian’s chest tightened.
“You tested me when I was two.”
Richard stared at the paper.
“I never saw this.”
Damian laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
“I’m telling you the truth.”
Eleanor, when called, denied knowledge too.
Ortiz looked at the signatures.
The test had been ordered by Samuel Voss.
Not Richard.
Simon’s father.
The doctor had taken Damian’s blood during a childhood hospital admission for pneumonia and secretly compared it to stored parental samples.
Why?
The attached letter answered.
Richard,
I confirmed what we feared. The child is Eleanor’s, not yours.
I strongly advise against disclosure.
The clinic’s labeling failure would create litigation, public scandal, and possible criminal inquiry.
More importantly, Damian is legally and socially your son. Biological disruption serves no one.
I have destroyed the donor cross-reference.
Let the matter end here.
S.V.
Damian read the final line twice.
Destroyed the donor cross-reference.
But he had not.
Somewhere, Thomas Collins’s files preserved enough to identify Paul.
Or Samuel Voss knew and concealed it.
Richard looked broken.
“I never received that letter.”
Ortiz said,
“Then why was it addressed to you?”
“I don’t know.”
Damian stared at him.
Richard continued.
“Samuel handled sensitive medical matters. He may have prepared it and decided not to send it.”
Possible.
Again.
No clean answer.
Then a forensic technician called from Simon’s private storage room.
They found a shredder bag.
Not shredded well enough.
Fragments reconstructed into a note.
MARA COLLINS — emotionally volatile, historically primed.
ELEANOR — likely cooperative if approached through family guilt.
DAMIAN — will demand testing if infant identity challenged.
AVA — blood-type discrepancy necessary to accelerate.
Damian stopped breathing.
Simon had profiled them.
Not just family history.
Behavior.
He had known exactly how to provoke the chain reaction.
Mara did not invent the entire crisis alone.
Simon encouraged it from the shadows.
Ortiz called Mara back for questioning.
This time she brought a lawyer.
Good.
No more self-destructive confession games.
Mara stared at Simon’s note.
“I never saw this.”
Her attorney touched her arm.
She continued carefully.
“He did tell me something.”
“What?” Ortiz asked.
“That if Damian refused to listen, the only thing rich families respect is doubt about blood.”
Damian felt sick.
“When?”
“Three months ago.”
“During the confidentiality offer?”
“Yes.”
“What exactly did he say?”
Mara looked toward the table.
“He said the Blackwoods would never test Damian willingly. He said another infant identity crisis might force them.”
Ortiz’s expression hardened.
“Did he suggest switching babies?”
Mara hesitated.
Her attorney whispered something.
Mara answered.
“Not directly.”
“Indirectly?”
“He said, ‘History has a shape. Sometimes people only recognize it when it repeats.’”
Damian closed his eyes.
Simon had planted the idea.
Mara still chose the assault.
The disguise.
The bands.
Both truths mattered.
Ortiz asked,
“Did he know Eleanor was talking to you?”
“Yes.”
“Did he encourage it?”
“Yes.”
“Did he tell you Damian’s family would arrive early?”
“No. Eleanor did.”
“Did he know you planned to enter the nursery?”
Mara began crying.
“I think so.”
“Why?”
“Because the day before, he sent me one message.”
She looked at Ortiz.
“What message?”
“Make sure the Blackwoods see the bands.”
Silence.
There it was.
Simon had wanted witnesses.
Damian’s parents.
Damian himself.
A family trauma performed under glass.
Ortiz’s phone rang before she could ask more.
A border alert.
Simon’s passport had not been used.
But facial recognition flagged him at a private rail terminal under another name.
He was heading north.
Toward a Blackwood property.
Richard knew immediately.
“The lake house.”
Damian frowned.
“Why?”
Richard stared.
“That’s where Samuel Voss stored old medical archives after the clinic closed.”
Of course.
The Blackwoods owned the building where the evidence had been hidden.
They drove under police escort.
The lake house was three hours away.
By the time they arrived, rain had started.
Damian hated that.
Too many family crises seemed to come with weather.
The house sat dark among pine trees.
Police entered first.
No Simon.
But the study had been torn apart.
Cabinets open.
Old boxes emptied.
A fireplace still warm.
He had burned records.
Not all.
Ortiz’s team recovered one metal lockbox beneath the floorboards.
Inside were donor code lists from the 1988 fertility cycle.
Paul Collins’s code.
Eleanor Blackwood’s embryo record.
Richard’s sample.
And one handwritten correction.
PATERNAL SOURCE: C-17.
C-17 was Paul.
The truth existed.
Simon had spent decades sitting on it.
Damian stared at the page.
“Why?”
Richard answered quietly.
“To protect us.”
Damian turned.
“No.”
His voice hardened.
“To control us.”
Richard looked at him.
Damian continued.
“If he wanted to protect me, he would have given me the truth when I was old enough to understand it.”
Richard said nothing.
Ortiz searched another folder.
One document bore Simon’s signature.
A draft Blackwood succession memorandum.
If Damian’s biological parentage becomes public, legal challenges may arise concerning bloodline-restricted family trusts.
Damian froze.
“What trusts?”
Richard looked away.
There it was.
Money again.
Always.
Eleanor’s fertility scandal had not remained secret only because of shame.
Richard’s father had created several family trusts requiring direct biological descent from the Blackwood male line.
If Damian was not Richard’s biological son, his eligibility could be challenged.
Billions.
Company voting rights.
Foundation control.
Simon had spent his entire career protecting Damian’s legal position by hiding biology.
Damian felt ill.
“So my identity was an asset-management problem.”
Richard whispered,
“No.”
“That document says yes.”
“You were my son.”
“And also the key to a trust.”
Richard closed his eyes.
Both.
Always both.
Then Ortiz found the most recent page.
AVA BLACKWOOD — potential clean succession reset.
Damian stared.
“What does that mean?”
Richard went pale.
Ortiz read further.
If Ava is confirmed as biological descendant of Serena and Damian, she does not restore male-line Blackwood eligibility.
However, public confusion over infant identity could justify emergency restructuring before Damian origin disclosure.
Damian’s blood ran cold.
Simon was not trying only to expose the old truth.
He was using Ava’s birth to restructure the family empire before anyone could challenge Damian’s inheritance.
Mara’s crime created chaos.
The fake blood type created doubt.
The family rushed into genetic testing.
Simon planned to use that panic to move assets.
“Where?” Damian asked.
Ortiz turned the page.
Proposed emergency trustee:
Simon Voss.
Silence.
Richard sat down.
Damian finally understood.
Simon had spent years calling secrecy protection.
Now he was trying to inherit control from the confusion he helped create.
And somewhere nearby, he was still free.
That evening, Serena asked Damian whether losing the old bloodline trusts frightened him.
“Yes.”
“Because of money?”
“No.”
“Power?”
He hesitated.
“Yes.”
She appreciated the honesty.
Damian continued.
“I’ve spent my whole adult life being told control protects the family.”
Serena looked toward Ava.
“And did it protect her in the nursery?”
“No.”
“Then maybe losing some control is not the same as losing safety.”
He nodded.
The answer was obvious.
Living it would be harder.
Ortiz later obtained Simon’s financial records.
He had quietly billed Blackwood family entities for “continuity planning” every year Damian served as chief executive.
Millions.
Richard stared at the total.
“He was charging us to preserve a secret he helped create.”
Damian corrected him.
“To preserve control over the secret.”
That difference mattered.
Simon had not merely hidden truth.
He had made himself valuable because truth remained hidden.
May you like
Every year of silence increased his importance.
Damian finally understood why some family secrets survived people who no longer even remembered how they began.
