Chapter 8 - Julian Cross.
The message remained on the screen for five seconds before disappearing.
Owen disconnected the computer from the network.
Daniel looked at Eleanor.
“You said no one else had the recording.”
“I thought no one did.”
Willa was too angry to be afraid anymore.
“Tell me who Julian Cross is.”
Daniel explained that Cross was a private equity financier who specialized in buying distressed family companies through layers of shell corporations.
Five years earlier, when Grant took executive control of Sterling Holdings, Cross quietly provided the loans that kept the company alive.
In exchange, Cross gained rights to acquire major assets if Sterling defaulted.
Grant believed Cross was simply a ruthless lender.
Eleanor knew otherwise.
“You slept with the man who later financed your son?”
Eleanor looked down.
“I was twenty-four.”
“That is not an answer.”
“He was charming, married, and dangerous.”
Eleanor said she ended the affair when she discovered she was pregnant.
Cross wanted her to leave Victor and raise the child with him.
She refused.
After Grant was born, Cross vanished from her life for nearly two decades.
Then he returned when Grant became powerful enough to be useful.
Daniel’s expression turned grim.
“He did not rescue Sterling Holdings.”
Willa understood.
“He bought influence over his own son.”
Eleanor nodded.
Grant had discovered Cross was his father only three days ago, after stealing Daniel’s file and confronting Eleanor.
Cross had contacted him almost immediately.
Willa felt a chill.
“How?”
Eleanor lifted her eyes.
“Because someone told him the file had been stolen.”
Everyone looked at Owen.
He stiffened.
“I did not.”
Daniel’s phone rang.
The caller ID displayed an unknown number.
He answered on speaker.
Julian Cross sounded older than Willa expected, smooth and almost amused.
“Daniel.”
“Julian.”
“You have always been terrible at protecting secrets.”
Willa moved closer to the phone.
“Why do you want me?”
Cross paused.
“So that is Willa.”
His familiarity made her skin crawl.
“You are standing between my son and something he was promised.”
“The trust?”
“No.”
Cross laughed softly.
“Grant still thinks this is about the trust.”
Daniel’s face changed.
“What did you promise him?”
Cross ignored the question.
“Willa, your fiancé is angry, humiliated, and unstable.”
“He is not my fiancé anymore.”
“That may be the smartest thing anyone in your family has done tonight.”
Willa clenched her jaw.
“If you are warning me about Grant, why are you threatening us?”
“Because I need what your father has.”
Daniel looked at the flash drive.
Cross continued.
“Not the recording.”
Then he said, “The original trust amendment.”
Daniel’s eyes moved toward a locked steel cabinet at the back of the records room.
Willa saw it.
So did Eleanor.
Cross laughed again.
“Thank you, Daniel.”
A red light blinked above the ceiling vent.
Daniel explained that Cross's companies rarely appeared under his own name.
He preferred debt funds, consulting groups, and charitable partnerships that looked unrelated until someone traced the same lawyers and offshore accounts.
Willa remembered Grant boasting that he had saved Sterling Holdings without help from his family.
Now she understood that the rescue itself had been a trap.
Grant had mistaken a leash for a lifeline.
That did not make Willa forgive him.
It made him more dangerous.
A desperate man who discovered his entire success belonged to someone else might destroy anything that proved it.
A tiny camera was hidden inside it.
May you like
They had been watched the entire time.
Page
