Chapter 8 - LIAM'S PART IN THE MACHINE
Liam wanted Victor fired immediately.
The board refused.
Not until investigation completed.
That enraged him.
Then outside counsel asked Liam questions.
“Why did you use the internal laboratory for a personal paternity test?”
“Privacy.”
“Was the platform validated for legal paternity determinations?”
“No.”
“Did you know chain of custody was absent?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ask Naomi Grant to supervise?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
Liam hesitated.
Because Naomi would have told him to use a proper external test.
Then:
“Did you pressure Victor for speed?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Liam produced messages.
LIAM:
Need result today.
VICTOR:
Lab wants recollect.
LIAM:
No. Use what we have.
Ava read them.
Liam looked devastated.
“I meant rerun it.”
Rachel said:
“But you wrote use what we have.”
Again:
words becoming evidence.
Then another:
VICTOR:
May be messy.
LIAM:
I don’t care. I need an answer.
Ava looked at him.
“That’s exactly what you did.”
Liam stared.
“What?”
“You needed an answer more than you needed the truth.”
Silence.
Victor had manipulated.
The lab had failed.
The sample was wrong.
But Liam had built the conditions for certainty without safeguards.
May you like
Then he turned that certainty on a baby.
No corporate conspiracy erased that.
