Chapter 11 - THE REAL SECRET WAS EVEN WORSEThen Julian revealed another document he had seen before his disappearance.
The DNA records contained a second result.
Charles’s biological father was not a stranger.
It was Edward Vale.
Arthur Sr.’s longtime business partner.
And co-founder of the original Blackwood-Vale Logistics Company.
That mattered because Edward Vale had sold his forty-percent interest to Arthur Sr. under unusual circumstances decades earlier.
The family story said Edward voluntarily exited.
The archive suggested otherwise.
Arthur Sr. had known Charles was Edward’s son.
Then, after Edward died unexpectedly, Arthur Sr. purchased Edward’s shares from his estate at a steep discount.
Eleanor, Charles’s mother, signed documents supporting the transaction.
If Charles was biologically Edward’s son, he might have had an inheritance claim to the Vale estate.
One that had been suppressed.
Charles was not only afraid of losing Blackwood rights.
He was potentially the heir to a completely different fortune.
And if that old transaction had been fraudulent?
The entire foundation of Blackwood ownership could be challenged.
Now the secret was no longer merely:
Charles isn’t a Blackwood by blood.
It was:
The Blackwood empire may have been built partly by absorbing assets that should have passed to Charles through his biological father.
That was why Arthur Sr. hid the truth.
And why Charles, once he discovered it years later, did something unexpected.
He kept hiding it too.
Because exposing the theft might return assets to him—
May you like
but also destroy the company he already controlled as a Blackwood.
He chose the existing throne over a different truth.
Related Stories
