Chapter 6 - The Last Cross Secret
Elena did not know whether Damian was alive.
Victor refused to tell her.
The car drove for nearly an hour.
Her wrists were not tied, but a man sat beside her with a weapon beneath his coat.
Victor sat opposite her.
His earlier composure was gone.
Blood marked his cuff where Damian had struck him.
“You should have accepted the apartment,” he said.
Elena stared out the window.
“You should have left my baby alone.”
“You still don’t understand.”
“I understand enough.”
“No.”
Victor leaned forward.
“You think Damian is different from the rest of us because he speaks softly and wears clean suits.”
Elena looked at him.
“I think he came when I called.”
That silenced Victor.
“He protected someone who meant nothing to him.”
“He had reasons.”
“Everyone has reasons.”
Victor’s expression hardened.
“You have become sentimental.”
“No.”
Elena placed one hand over her stomach.
“I’ve become very clear about who people are when they’re frightened.”
Eric had run.
Victor had threatened.
Damian had stayed.
That did not erase Damian’s family history.
But it mattered.
The car finally entered a gated property beside Lake Michigan.
A Cross family estate.
Victor took Elena inside.
Portraits lined the hall.
Generations of men who looked as if they had never heard the word no.
A woman waited in the library.
She was in her early sixties, elegant, silver-blond hair pulled back from her face.
Elena recognized her from society photographs.
Margaret Cross.
Damian’s mother.
Elena stopped.
“You.”
Margaret looked at Victor.
“What have you done?”
Victor closed the library doors.
“Fixed Damian’s mistake.”
Margaret’s face went pale.
“You kidnapped a pregnant woman?”
“I protected the family.”
“No. You protected yourself.”
Victor laughed.
“You’ve enjoyed the money for thirty years.”
“I enjoyed my husband.”
“You tolerated him.”
“I loved him.”
Victor’s expression flickered.
Margaret turned to Elena.
“Is Damian alive?”
Elena’s throat tightened.
“I don’t know.”
Margaret looked at Victor.
“If my son dies—”
“He won’t.”
“You shot him.”
“Not intentionally.”
Elena stared.
“You knew?”
Margaret closed her eyes.
She had received a call from one of Victor’s men.
She knew about the clinic.
She had also known far more than Elena expected.
Years earlier, Margaret had suspected Victor was stealing from the company.
Damian’s father, Charles, finally discovered enough to remove him.
Three weeks later, Charles died.
“I never believed it was natural,” Margaret said.
“But I couldn’t prove anything.”
Victor poured himself a drink.
“You couldn’t prove it because there was nothing to prove.”
Margaret looked at him.
“There was an autopsy sample.”
Victor froze.
Elena noticed.
Margaret continued.
“Charles knew he was being poisoned.”
Victor’s glass stopped halfway to his mouth.
“He left blood samples with a private physician.”
For the first time, Elena saw fear on Victor Cross’s face.
“Where?”
Margaret smiled without warmth.
“You never found them.”
Victor crossed the room and grabbed her arm.
“Where?”
A voice came from the doorway.
“She doesn’t need to tell you.”
Victor spun.
Eric Sloan stood there.
Bruised.
Bleeding above one eyebrow.
But alive.
Behind him stood Dominic.
And behind Dominic were federal agents.
Victor reached for his gun.
Margaret stepped backward.
Eric shouted.
Victor drew.
A shot rang out.
Victor’s weapon flew from his hand.
An agent tackled him against the desk.
The room erupted.
Within seconds, Victor Cross was face-down on the carpet with his hands cuffed behind him.
He still managed to laugh.
“You think this ends anything?”
Dominic looked at him.
“It ends your evening.”
Elena searched behind them.
“Damian?”
No one answered immediately.
Her heart stopped.
Then Eric said, “He’s alive.”
Her knees almost gave out.
“The bullet passed through his shoulder. He lost blood, but he’s awake.”
Elena covered her mouth.
Margaret sat down.
Tears filled her eyes.
For the first time since Elena had met anyone named Cross, the room did not feel powerful.
It felt human.
The next forty-eight hours changed everything.
Victor’s confession at the clinic had been recorded.
So had his statements in the car, through a secondary transmitter Dominic had hidden in Elena’s handbag before they left.
The original ledger was recovered from a storage vault Eric had created under an alias.
Margaret gave investigators information about Charles Cross’s preserved toxicology samples.
Northstar Medical Consulting was raided.
Three employees were arrested.
Two police officers were suspended.
A judge resigned.
Reporters gathered outside Cross Urban Headquarters.
Victor Cross was charged with kidnapping, extortion, conspiracy, financial crimes, and multiple offenses tied to the investigation into Charles Cross’s death.
Damian survived surgery.
Elena visited him the following morning.
He looked pale.
His left shoulder was bandaged.
“You look terrible,” she said.
He opened his eyes.
“Thank you.”
“I’m a nurse. Medical honesty.”
“Apparently bedside manner is optional.”
“You were shot because of me.”
“No.”
“Damian—”
“I was shot because my uncle is a criminal.”
She pulled a chair beside the bed.
“You signed those papers.”
“They’re worthless.”
“You didn’t know that.”
“Yes, I did.”
She stared.
Damian explained that the trust-transfer document Victor had prepared required independent certification.
Without it, his signature alone meant nothing.
“You still signed.”
“Your sister was tied to a chair.”
Something inside Elena shifted.
She looked down.
“I don’t know what happens now.”
“With Victor?”
“With everything.”
Damian understood.
Eric.
The baby.
Them.
He was quiet for a moment.
Then he said, “You go back to your life.”
“That easy?”
“It won’t be easy.”
“And you?”
“I clean up what my family did.”
His voice softened.
“You don’t owe me anything, Elena.”
For some reason, that hurt.
Three days later, an independent laboratory performed a legal prenatal paternity test with Elena’s consent.
No Northstar.
No Cross doctors.
No family attorneys.
Only Elena, Eric, Marisol, and a specialist chosen by Elena herself.
The result arrived four days later.
Elena opened it at her kitchen table.
Probability of paternity: 99.99%.
Eric Sloan was the biological father.
He sat across from her.
Neither spoke for several seconds.
Then Eric cried.
Not loudly.
He simply covered his face.
“I’m sorry.”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“I know.”
“I missed everything.”
“You missed twelve weeks.”
“I missed hearing the heartbeat.”
“You can hear it next time.”
Eric looked up.
Hope entered his face.
“As the father,” Elena said carefully.
His hope changed.
He understood what she meant.
Not as her boyfriend.
Not automatically as her future husband.
As the father.
“I’ll take that,” he whispered.
Later that evening, Elena went to Damian’s hospital room.
It was empty.
A nurse handed her an envelope.
“He was discharged this afternoon.”
Inside was a short note.
Elena,
The world believed for a few days that your child was mine.
He isn’t.
But protecting both of you was never about that.
You deserve a life that has nothing to do with the Cross family.
I hope you get it.
—Damian
Elena read the note twice.
Then looked through the hospital window at the snow falling over Chicago.
For reasons she did not want to admit, she felt as if someone had just walked away with a piece of her.
Three weeks passed.
Damian did not call.
He did not text.
He kept his promise.
Then, on the morning of his thirty-fifth birthday, every television station in Chicago carried the same breaking news.
Cross Urban Holdings had announced an emergency leadership change.
Damian Cross was surrendering control of the entire company.
And before Elena could understand why, her phone rang.
Margaret Cross was calling.
May you like
“Elena,” she said.
“There’s something Damian never told you.”
