Chapter 3 - THE WOMAN IN THE CREAM COAT
“Lucas's mother is dead.”
My words came out harder than I intended.
Adrian stood beneath the porch light while rain poured from the roof behind him.
“Evelyn raised him,” I said. “She carried him. She was there when he was born.”
Adrian looked at me with an expression I couldn't understand.
“Damian, Evelyn couldn't have children.”
I nearly struck him again.
“Don't you dare.”
“I'm not trying to hurt her memory.”
“You've already done enough.”
Behind me, Grace guided the children inside.
But Lucas remained close enough to hear.
I lowered my voice.
“Evelyn and I went through fertility treatments. We tried for almost three years. Then she became pregnant.”
Adrian nodded slowly.
“That's what you were told.”
I felt as though someone had pulled the ground from beneath me.
Adrian reached into his coat and removed a folded piece of paper.
I refused to take it.
“Whatever you're selling, I'm not interested.”
“It's not about money.”
“Everything in our family is about money.”
That made him pause.
Then he said, “That's exactly why Lucas disappeared.”
A cold wind swept across the driveway.
Adrian explained that six years earlier, he had been quietly investigating irregularities inside Cross Holdings.
Millions of dollars had moved through shell companies into private security contractors and medical facilities.
At first, he believed someone was stealing from the company.
Then he discovered records connected to Lucas's birth.
“Rebecca Hale worked at a private fertility clinic outside Evanston,” Adrian said. “She was twenty-six. She needed money for her mother's medical bills.”
I stared at him.
“Are you saying Evelyn bought our son?”
“No. I'm saying someone arranged a pregnancy and concealed the agreement from both of you.”
I looked down at the photograph.
Evelyn's face was partially turned away.
The cream coat was familiar.
I had bought it for her on our fifth anniversary.
But the woman's hair was different.
Evelyn had worn hers short that year.
The woman in the photograph had long brown hair tucked beneath a scarf.
I looked closer.
My pulse accelerated.
“That isn't Evelyn.”
Adrian nodded.
“No.”
“Then why did you let me believe it was?”
“Because I needed to know what you'd recognize.”
I stared at him.
He had deliberately tested me.
After six years of grief, my own brother still didn't trust me.
I folded the photograph.
“Get off this property.”
“Damian—”
“Now.”
Adrian stepped closer.
“If I leave without telling you what happened, Lucas remains in danger.”
I looked toward the house.
Through the window, I could see Grace kneeling beside Sophie, helping her remove her rain boots.
Lucas stood near them.
Watching us.
“What do you want?” I asked.
Adrian's expression softened.
“For you to stop believing the wrong people.”
“Then start telling the truth.”
He finally did.
Rebecca Hale had agreed to act as a gestational surrogate.
Evelyn and I were supposed to be the legal parents from birth.
The arrangement itself had not been the crime.
The crime came later.
According to Adrian, Rebecca had discovered that somebody inside Cross Holdings was using the fertility clinic to move money and conceal illegal financial arrangements.
When she threatened to expose it, she began receiving threats.
“Why didn't she come to me?”
“She tried.”
I shook my head.
“I never heard her name.”
“Someone intercepted her messages.”
“Who?”
“I don't know.”
I laughed bitterly.
“You know enough to disappear for six years. Enough to find my son. Enough to arrive with an armed convoy. But not enough to name the person responsible?”
Adrian's jaw tightened.
“You think staying hidden was easy?”
“I think you had six years to explain yourself.”
He looked toward the driveway.
“There's something else.”
Of course there was.
“There always is.”
“The day Lucas disappeared, Rebecca was supposed to meet me at the north entrance of Cross Tower. She had evidence.”
“Of what?”
“Payments connected to a private security operation.”
He hesitated.
“Someone had hired men to make Rebecca and Lucas disappear.”
I looked at the house again.
My son had been seven.
Seven years old.
Somebody had decided his life was an inconvenience.
“Why would they target Lucas?”
Adrian's voice became quieter.
“Because of the family trust.”
Our grandfather had created the Cross Legacy Trust decades earlier.
It controlled a significant portion of our family's industrial properties.
The shares could not be sold without approval from designated family beneficiaries.
After our father's death, I became chairman.
But Lucas inherited a separate voting interest.
One that would eventually give him extraordinary power.
“Lucas was a child,” I said.
“He was also the beneficiary who could prevent a transfer of controlling assets.”
“A seven-year-old couldn't vote.”
“No. But his guardian could.”
I stared at him.
“Evelyn?”
“Yes.”
I remembered something then.
Three weeks before Lucas vanished, Evelyn had argued with my chief financial officer, Martin Voss.
I had walked into my study and found them standing over a stack of papers.
Evelyn had been furious.
Martin had laughed it off as a disagreement about charitable donations.
I had believed him.
I had believed almost everyone.
“Where is Rebecca now?” I asked.
Adrian looked away.
“That's what I've spent six years trying to establish.”
“You said she was in the burning car.”
“She was. But Lucas's account suggests she may have survived the initial crash.”
“And you left her?”
Adrian flinched.
“I pulled Lucas out first. Then someone fired at us from the tree line.”
He touched the scar beneath his ear.
“I was hit. The last thing I remember before losing consciousness was Rebecca trying to get out.”
“Who found you?”
“A man who worked for me. He helped me disappear because returning home would have exposed Lucas's survival.”
I studied him.
“And your funeral?”
“Staged by the same people who attacked us. They believed I'd died from the gunshot wound.”
I wanted to believe him.
But wanting had destroyed my judgment before.
Inside the house, something fell.
A ceramic crash.
Grace screamed my name.
I ran.
The kitchen window had shattered.
Glass covered the floor.
Grace stood in front of the children, holding a wooden chair.
A man dressed in black was halfway through the window.
One of Adrian's guards rushed past me and dragged him backward.
Lucas was crouched beneath the table.
Sophie was crying.
I went straight to them.
“Are you hurt?”
Both shook their heads.
Grace's face had gone white.
“He was taking pictures,” she whispered.
I looked toward the broken window.
The intruder hadn't been trying to enter.
He had pressed a camera against the glass.
Adrian appeared behind me.
“Bring him here.”
The guard hauled the man onto the porch.
His camera had fallen open.
Inside was a memory card.
Adrian examined the first image.
Then his expression changed.
He turned the screen toward me.
It showed Lucas standing beside Sophie.
The photograph had been taken earlier that evening.
But what stopped my heart wasn't the picture.
It was the caption already attached to the file.
TARGET CONFIRMED. SECOND CHILD PRESENT. AWAITING AUTHORIZATION FROM D. CROSS.
I stared at my brother.
Adrian stared back.
And for one terrible moment, neither of us moved.
Because there were only two men in our family whose names began with D.
Our father, Daniel Cross.
And me.
May you like
Our father had been dead for eight years.
Yet someone had just issued an order using my name.
