I Have Five Kick-Ass Brothers – Episode 44
The adoption record named a twenty-year-old man called Evan Reed and claimed he shared both Lincoln parents’ DNA. Mrs. Lincoln knew the document could not be true. She had not given birth again after Raina, and her medical history contained no missing pregnancy.
Raina urged the family not to contact Evan until the record was authenticated. An innocent stranger could be harmed by another scheme built around their name. The brothers agreed, though the possibility unsettled each of them differently.
The laboratory confirmed performing a test under Evan’s name six months earlier. Samples had arrived through a private clinic with valid consent forms and had matched stored Lincoln profiles. Those profiles were supposed to be restricted after the birth-switch investigation.
Someone had stolen the parents’ genetic data and submitted it beside an unknown sample. The test result was real only in the narrowest technical sense; the identities attached to the samples remained unverified.
Luke traced the clinic payment to Owen’s account, but the adoption search predated his marriage plot. Owen admitted he created the record for a client and refused to identify that person without another deal.
Prosecutors offered no bargain. They located Evan through ordinary channels and learned he worked at a community center funded by the new identity-record program Raina had proposed. His appearance there could be coincidence or deliberate placement.
Raina visited the center with a caseworker rather than a security entourage. Evan was friendly, hardworking, and unaware his name appeared in any adoption registry. He had grown up with his biological mother and possessed complete birth records.
When told someone used his identity, he agreed to a verified DNA test. He looked nothing like the Lincolns and had no interest in claiming their fortune. His concern focused on how criminals obtained his personal data.
The verified result showed no relation. Relief mixed with anger as Raina realized the false sibling was another attempt to destabilize succession. If the claim had surfaced publicly, the company would face a new inheritance dispute.
Evan remembered a volunteer photographing staff identification cards several months earlier. The woman introduced herself as Zoey and said she represented a hospital-record charity. Security footage confirmed Melody had met her twice.
Zoey was not a Lincoln employee or known associate of Walter, Carlisle, or Owen. Her records listed her as a freelance genealogist specializing in missing heirs. She appeared wherever family uncertainty could be converted into profit.
Theo’s investigators found Zoey advertising confidential heir verification to wealthy clients. She promised to locate unknown relatives and quietly resolve inconvenient claims. Owen had likely hired her to manufacture pressure points before choosing the marriage scheme.
Police searched her office and recovered hundreds of stolen profiles. The scale exceeded the Lincoln case. Families across Brookfield had been threatened with false paternity, fabricated adoptions, and altered ancestry reports.
Raina saw an opportunity beyond defending herself. She asked Lincoln Group and Jones Group to fund legal assistance for every affected family through the independent program announced at the gala.
Noah approved the resources but insisted an outside board control the fund. Raina agreed. Their recent lessons had taught them that good intentions still required transparent limits.
Zoey fled before the search, taking a portable database with her. Investigators believed it contained the unaltered genetic profiles and a list of clients who purchased fabricated heirs.
Evan offered to help identify the volunteer network at the community center. Raina accepted his assistance without treating him as another hidden relative. His identity belonged to him, not to the drama others had created.
Public disclosure of the false record cleared the Lincoln succession again. It also brought dozens of victims forward, turning Raina’s private fight into a broader demand for secure identity systems.
Coco recognized Zoey’s photograph when it appeared in the news. She had seen the genealogist at the Smith mansion before the DNA test that revealed the birth switch.
According to Coco, Zoey had delivered the original test results personally. If she was involved from the beginning, even the evidence that reunited the daughters with their biological families might have been manipulated.