And somewhere along the way, my husband had entered a criminal world built around stolen reproductive material, falsified consent, and desperate clients willing to pay for shortcuts.
But why?
That question haunted me.
Why would Nick steal our own embryo?
He already had legal access as one of the genetic parents, but he could not authorize a transfer without me.
If he wanted a child, why not tell me?
Why Megan?
Why secrecy?
The answer came from his financial records.
Daria found a series of transfers from an account belonging to Gerald Croft.
Three payments to Nick.
**$90,000.**
**$125,000.**
**$210,000.**
Nick had not been paying them.
They had been paying Nick.
“He sold something,” I said.
Daria looked grim.
“That’s what I think.”
“But Knox is ours.”
“Yes.”
“So what did he sell?”
We found out from Gerald.
Police arrested him after investigators connected the forged embryo paperwork to his shell companies.
Facing charges that could send him back to prison, Gerald talked.
Nick had entered their network because of gambling debt.
At first, he helped identify wealthy couples undergoing IVF.
His development business gave him access to investors, physicians, attorneys, and high-income clients.
He introduced people.
Gerald paid him referral fees.
Then Nick’s losses grew.
He borrowed.
He lied.
Finally, he offered something more valuable.
Our embryos.
I nearly vomited when Daria told me.
“He intended to sell all four?”
I whispered.
“Apparently.”
The first embryo was transferred to Megan as a test of whether the forged authorization process would work.
“A test?”
My voice sounded strange.
“My child was a test?”
Daria reached across the table.
“Angela…”
I pulled my hands away.
“What about the other three?”
“They’re safe.”
“For now.”
“Yes.”
“And Nick planned to sell them?”
Gerald claimed yes.
But then something happened.
Knox was born.
Nick saw him.
And Nick changed his mind.
Not about his affairs.
Not about gambling.
Not about lying to me.
But about the embryos.
He told Gerald the deal was finished.
He refused to release the remaining three.
Gerald threatened him.
Nick owed dangerous people money.
Megan demanded money of her own.
The six women in his phone were real.
The gambling was real.
The betrayal was real.
But so was something else.
**In the final month of his life, my husband had begun trying to dismantle the entire scheme.**
That was why he rewrote his will.
That was why he recorded conversations.
That was why Daria eventually discovered a safe-deposit box in my name.
Inside were documents.
Bank records.
A flash drive.
And a letter.
I sat alone in Daria’s office when I opened it.
The first line nearly broke me.
*Angela, if you are reading this, then I failed to tell you while I was alive.*
I almost stopped.
But I kept going.
Nick admitted everything.
The gambling.
The women.
The lies.
The embryo.
He wrote that he had spent years convincing himself that every terrible decision could be repaired by one successful development deal.
One big win.
One lucky night.
He kept believing the next success would erase the last betrayal.
It never did.
Then Knox was born.
*I held him when Megan was in the kitchen,* Nick wrote. *He wrapped his hand around my finger.
Angela, I looked at his face and realized I had taken something from you that could never be measured in money.*
My vision blurred.
*He is yours.*
*Not legally.
Not simply.
Maybe not in any way you will ever want to claim.
But genetically, biologically, he came from us.*
Then came the sentence that changed how I understood his death.
*I am not going to Raleigh.*
He had written the letter the night before his final casino trip.
*I am meeting Gerald near Kings Mountain.
I told him I have copies of everything.
I’m giving him one chance to cooperate before I go to law enforcement.*
I stopped breathing.
Nick had not gone to the casino simply to gamble.
Yes, he had gambled while there.
The surveillance footage proved it.
For nearly fourteen hours.
Because addiction does not become noble just because a person finally wants redemption.
But he had also met Gerald twice.
After the second meeting, Nick sent an encrypted file to a lawyer.
Then he left.
Exhausted.
Emotionally destroyed.
And drove into the night.
His death was still an accident.
But now I understood what he had been doing in the final hours before it happened.
Trying far too late to stop the damage he had created.
I folded the letter.
Daria watched me.
“You don’t have to forgive him.”
“I don’t.”
“You can love him and hate what he did.”
“I know.”
“You can miss him and still be furious.”
I looked at her.
“That’s the worst part.”
“What?”
“I still miss him.”
My voice broke.
