Chapter 10 - The Son He Never Wanted.
Grant stared at Julian Cross as though the night had betrayed him one more time.
“You told me you would stay out of this.”
Cross walked closer.
“I told you many things because you were easier to control when you believed them.”
Grant’s face went blank.
Willa recognized the expression.
It was the same one he had worn just before striking her.
Cross noticed it too.
“Do not make that face at me.”
Grant’s hands curled into fists.
“Where is Marissa?”
Willa’s question cut through them.
Cross pointed toward the theater lobby.
Marissa emerged with Owen beside her.
Her wrists were free.
Willa stared.
Owen gave the smallest nod.
He had found her before entering.
Grant looked confused.
“I left her locked upstairs.”
“You are not very good at kidnapping,” Cross said.
Grant lunged toward him.
Cross’s bodyguard stepped from the shadows.
Willa had not even seen the man.
Grant stopped.
Cross turned to Willa.
“The drive.”
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“You have more of Daniel in you than I expected.”
Willa’s eyes narrowed.
“Do not talk about my father like you know me.”
“I know your family better than you do.”
Cross revealed that he had spent years engineering the Sterling company’s dependency on his money.
He never cared whether Grant inherited Victor’s trust.
He wanted Grant to borrow against Sterling assets until default became inevitable.
Then Cross would acquire the hotels, real estate, and media holdings at a fraction of their value.
Grant had not been his heir.
He had been his access point.
Grant’s voice cracked.
“You said we were building something together.”
Cross looked almost bored.
“I said what you needed to hear.”
For the first time, Willa saw Grant not as powerful but as a child who had built himself around another man’s approval.
The sympathy lasted one second.
Then she remembered the ballroom.
Cross held out his hand again.
“The recording gives regulators enough context to reopen Victor’s estate and freeze the trust.”
Willa tightened her grip on the drive.
“That sounds like your problem.”
“It becomes yours if the amendment appears.”
Grant looked at him.
“You have it?”
Cross smiled.
“No.”
Everyone went still.
Cross turned to Daniel, who had entered through the rear doors with Eleanor.
“But Daniel thinks I do.”
Daniel stopped beside Willa.
“What do you want?”
Cross’s smile faded.
“The same thing I wanted twenty-two years ago.”
Eleanor’s face changed.
“No.”
Cross looked directly at her.
“You.”
Grant recoiled.
Willa felt sick.
Cross had never returned for his son.
He had returned to reclaim control over Eleanor.
Eleanor stepped backward.
Cross’s bodyguard shifted toward her.
Then Grant moved.
He grabbed a metal stanchion from the floor and swung it at the bodyguard.
The theater erupted into chaos.
Willa heard Eleanor scream.
For a moment, Grant's face looked younger than his thirty years.
He looked like someone hearing that every achievement he treasured had been staged by another person.
Then the softness vanished.
He turned toward Willa as if she were somehow responsible for his humiliation.
That was the pattern she finally saw clearly.
Grant did not know how to carry shame.
He handed it to the nearest person and punished them for holding it.
Willa touched the bruise on her cheek.
She would never carry it for him again.
A gunshot cracked from the balcony above.
May you like
Grant fell.
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