Chapter 4 - The Audit of Deceit
The name Marcus Vance meant nothing to me, but as a financial auditor, finding hidden connections was my specialty.
After thanking Marta profusely and offering to help her secure a new position with one of my firm's executive clients in San Jose, I sat down at my laptop. It was midnight, but sleep was out of the question.
I started by pulling up Isla Rose’s background. On the surface, she was a 32-year-old former sales coordinator. But when I ran her name through deep public records and background check databases that our firm utilized, a dark picture began to emerge.
Isla Rose had two prior civil judgments against her for fraud and unpaid debts. Six years ago, before she met Nathan on that construction site, she had lived in Southern California. And who was listed as her co-borrower on a defaulted auto loan from 2018?
Marcus Vance.
I searched Marcus Vance. His social media profiles were mostly private, but a search of county court records revealed a rap sheet: misdemeanor forgery, identity theft, and extortion charges that had been dismissed due to lack of witness cooperation. He was a small-time hustler.
More importantly, Marcus Vance had dark brown hair, sharp features, and a distinctly crooked right eyebrow.
I pulled up the photo of four-year-old Mason from my digital files—the photo Nathan had proudly shown me six months ago.
I zoomed in on the boy’s face. He had dark brown hair. He had sharp facial features. And right above his right eye was a natural, crooked arch in his eyebrow.
He didn't look like Nathan at all. He was the spitting image of Marcus Vance.
A cold rage washed over me, immediately followed by a terrifying realization. Nathan was a fool who had been blinded by his desperate desire for a son, and Evelyn was so consumed by her obsession with a male heir that she had handed over her life savings without a second thought. But Isla had orchestrated something truly sinister.
She hadn't just faked a relationship; she had fabricated a child's paternity to extract hundreds of thousands of dollars from the Bennett family.
The next morning, I called my divorce attorney, Victoria Vance (no relation to Marcus). Victoria was a shark in Northern California family law—tough, brilliant, and utterly merciless when it came to protecting mothers and children.
I met Victoria in her downtown San Jose office. I laid out the original DNA document, the notes from my conversation with Marta, the photos of Marcus Vance, and Isla’s financial paper trail.
Victoria flipped through the pages, a slow, predatory smile spreading across her lips.
"Allara, this is exquisite," Victoria said, leaning back in her leather chair. "If what you're telling me is true, this isn't just a dispute over child support. This is grand larceny, wire fraud, and criminal conspiracy."
"I don't care about the money Nathan lost," I said firmly. "He made his bed. But he stripped my daughters of their inheritance, neglected them, and allowed his mother to publicly humiliate them for a lie. I want the truth exposed. I want my daughters vindicated."
"We can't just throw accusations around," Victoria cautioned, tapping her pen against the desk. "If we confront them now, Isla will pack up the kid and disappear with whatever cash she's already drained from Evelyn. We need air-tight, legally binding proof."
"How do we get that?"
"A court-ordered, chain-of-custody DNA test," Victoria replied. "Since Nathan listed Mason as a legal dependent in your divorce settlement to reduce his child support payments to you, we have legal standing to challenge the paternity claim. We can file a motion in family court alleging fraud based on new material evidence."
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"Will a judge grant it?"
"With this paper trail? Absolute," Victoria said. "We file the motion quietly. We don't warn Nathan. We don't warn Evelyn. And most importantly, we don't warn Isla Rose. We serve them when they least expect it."
