Chapter 92 Forged Signature

“Print it p>

Maris paused on the other end of the secure call. “You are sure p>

“I want to see the lie on paper p>

There were gentler ways to say it, healthier ones probably. A postpartum discharge sheet somewhere would have recommended rest, fluids, low stress, and avoiding documents that made a woman feel as if her skin had been signed over while she slept. The discharge sheet had not met Dario Armitage.

Noa was asleep in the bassinet with one fist free of her swaddle. I had tried to tuck it back twice; she had extracted it twice, with the silent determination of a child who had inherited my opinion of restraints.

The safe placement’s printer sat on the floor because the rented desk had no extra surface. It made small irritated sounds while the Armitage letter came out page by page.

Isolde crouched beside it. “I hate rich paper,” she said.

“That is not paper p>

“It came out of a printer p>

“It is a threat wearing paper p>

“I stand corrected p>

My abdomen cramped when I leaned forward. I stopped, breathed through it, and waited for the pain to settle into the larger ache that had become background weather. The pad under me felt too full. My nursing bra felt damp. My mouth tasted like cold tea and metal.

Noa slept. That meant the room could be ugly for a few minutes without frightening her.

The forged addendum had 4 pages. The first page was language; the second was more language. The third was the trap in velvet: hospital design, sponsor-adjacent development, maternal environment observations, domestic care concepts, naming conventions, and private postpartum recommendations assigned to Armitage-sponsored entities if developed using Armitage support, residence, funding, staff, or

access.

Residence. There it was, tucked into the middle of the sentence like a neutral condition.

Dario’s apartment. The 36th floor. The warm floors. The nursery clouds. The chain lock I had used after he told me it was his apartment, as if a chain could correct a deed. The brass bowl by the door where he dropped cufflinks and the kitchen where he slid ginger tea toward me while I signed papers he called mine. They had turned the place I had mistaken for home into a resource line.

The fourth page carried the signature. My signature-not my signature. The difference lived in the pressure, and I knew that before I could explain it. My real signature started narrow and loosened at the end, because I signed too quickly once my first name was done. The forged one tried to copy the looseness but had planned it. Even the hesitation was placed like furniture in a showroom.

“Aveline,” Isolde said quietly.

“I see it p>

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< Chapter 92

“No, sit back p>

I had not realized I was bracing over the desk until the room tilted at the edges. I sat.

Pain moved hot across my lower back. Milk prickled again. My body did not care that someone had counterfeited me; it cared that, the baby would wake soon and my uterus was still doing its brutal work in private. That made me angrier. Dario had always counted on bodies interrupting women at the exact moment men preferred them quiet.

I opened the old folder on the laptop.

NOA design-contracts / Storla originals

The files were not elegant. Some were scans. Some were photographs taken at bad angles on the apartment kitchen counter. Some had Dario’s thumb visible at the edge because he had been holding the paper down for me while I signed.

That thumb became evidence now.

I enlarged the original St. Orla design agreement. The date hit me first, not the signature. The original contract was 2 weeks before the donor event, part of the maternity-wing consulting work that had made Dario so proud of me in private and so silent about me in public. I had signed it because I needed work, because St. Orla had been a prestigious client, and because Dario had said, “This is yours. I want you to have rooms with your name on them p>

Rooms. Name. He had always known which words opened me.

The forged addendum was dated 1 day after his private proposal. I stared at the date until the numbers separated from each other.

That morning, I had woken in his apartment with the ring mark soft on my finger and a nausea wave that made me sit on the bathroom floor for 14 minutes. Dario had brought me water and a towel. He had put my hair back with a tenderness so practiced I had mistaken it for truth.

By 9:30, his assistant had arrived with a courier sleeve.

I remembered because I had been embarrassed.

I had been barefoot, wearing one of Dario’s shirts over leggings, with the private ring turned inward on my finger because Dario said we were still waiting for the right public moment. His assistant had not looked at the ring. She had looked at the papers.

Sabine Cho.

Dario’s executive assistant then. Former assistant now, if gossip threads about Armitage staff changes could be trusted.

She had stood in the entry hall holding a black folio and said, “Mr. Armitage asked me to collect the St. Orla originals for scanning before noon p>

“He didn’t mention that,” I had said.

“He said you knew p>

That had been enough then. He said you knew. It was astonishing how often a woman’s consent could be forged with a sentence.

I pulled up the photo album from that day. My hand shook. Isolde saw and reached for the mouse. I stopped her with a look, and she lifted both hands and sat back. Good. I needed witnesses who did not turn into owners when I trembled.

There were 12 photographs from that morning. A picture of the kitchen counter with ginger tea. A blurry shot of the ring turned inward on my finger because I had wanted to remember the private happiness without disobeying the public lie. A screenshot of Dario’s message at 8:57.

Sabine is coming by for the St. Orla packet. Just originals for scanning. I need them clean for the foundation archive.

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Foundation archive- not Armitage Group, not assignment, not sponsor-adjacent work product.

I took a screenshot of the screenshot, because evidence made me ridiculous and careful.

Then I opened the building access log Isolde had saved months ago when we still thought apartment records might matter only for lock status. The apartment had listed me as Resident Guest, Dario as Primary Owner. Sabine Cho’s visitor pass had been issued at 9:24 AM, exited at 10:06.

I clicked into the courier photographs. There it was – one image I had taken because the packet looked elegant on the counter and I had still been foolish enough to think elegance belonged to me if I worked hard enough. My original St. Orla agreement sat beneath the ginger tea mug. Dario’s message glowed on my laptop screen behind it. The signature page was visible – my real signature, the one he had access to, the one Sabine carried out in the folio.

Noa stirred. The sound cut through the room like a bell. I stood too quickly, and pain flashed white.

“Slow,” Isolde said, already moving to the bassinet but stopping before she touched Noa. “Do you want me to lift her p>

I wanted to say no because I hated needing help. Then Noa’s face wrinkled, and need became a stupid prideful word.

“Yes. Bring her to me p>

Isolde lifted her with both hands, careful around the head and neck, and placed her against my chest. Noa rooted immediately, offended by the delay. I settled her, adjusted fabric, and hissed when she latched badly on the first try.

“Again,” I whispered to her. “We both get another try p>

She found it on the second. The room quieted to swallowing.

I looked over Noa’s head at the forged page. Dario had tried to make my work a derivative of his support – my rooms, my observations, my maternal-care designs, my nursery thoughts, even my naming conventions. He had tried to turn the apartment, the ring, the tea, the staff, and the private engagement into resources he could claim as inputs. He had not only hidden a wife. He had built a world in which loving him made every part of me available for processing.

Maris came back on the secure line at 11:52.

She had received the scans, the old message, the visitor log, and the photos.

“Do not call Sabine Cho,” she said.

“I wasn’t going to p>

Isolde made a face that said I had been considering it with my whole skeleton.

Maris continued, “We preserve. We send a litigation-hold supplement. We request the native file, transmission metadata, scanner logs, document-management history, and every person who touched this addendum. We also ask Armitage to identify the person who processed or witnessed the signature p>

“They will say I signed it p>

“They may p>

“They will say I forgot p>

“They may try p>

“They will say pregnancy made me confused p>

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Maris’s expression hardened. “Then they will explain why their own visitor log, message, and version history align with the day their assist removed the originals p>

“And why the forged pressure is wrong p>

“Pressure p>

I touched the copy with the back of my knuckle, not my fingertips. “The pen lift before Ashby. I don’t lift there unless I am signing on a tablet or my hand is cramped. This is trying to imitate a photograph, not a person p>

Maris wrote that down too.

Noa’s mouth slowed. I shifted her slightly and counted swallows.

The old humiliation tried to rise. Barefoot in the apartment, ring hidden, assistant at the door, papers taken because Darío said I knew-a woman in another woman’s life handing over proof because she had been taught that access meant permission. I had let Sabine take the folic That was the thought Dario would have wanted me to keep, but I did not. I moved it aside and looked at the facts instead.

“This does not stay private,” I said.

Maris watched me through the screen.

“You mean court p>

“I mean it does not become another thing he did to me in a room where he controls the story p>

Isolde’s face changed-not pity, recognition.

I touched Noa’s back. She was milk-heavy now, loose and warm, her body trusting mine because she had no idea how many adults wanted to turn mothers into paperwork.

“Put it in the next filing,” I said. “Narrowly. No drama. Signature authenticity, access chain, ownership claim, postpartum work interference. I want the court to see that he is still trying to own what he cannot reach p>

Maris nodded once.

“I will draft p>

At 12:03, an email alert appeared in the corner of the screen- not from Armitage, from an address I did not recognize.

Subject: I processed the addendum. I need protection.

The message preview was only 1 line.

Ms. Ashby, my name is Sabine Cho, and I was told your signature authority had already been cleared.

I looked at the forged page, then at the visitor log, then at the name on the email, I knew who had processed it.

End of chapter

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Tai Jun

Tai Jun is a dreamer and storyteller who believes the sky is never the limit. He spends most of his time with his friend Lian, chasing new horizons and crafting tales that soar beyond boundaries.