And buried beneath all of it, the original theft that had built the Whitmore empire.
Thirty-one years earlier, Richard Whitmore had gutted a distressed manufacturing group with Julian Cross, then forged documents that transferred controlling rights into an entity that excluded Julian while binding the debt to him.
Julian survived.
Richard became respectable.
But men like Julian did not forget.
Neither, apparently, did paper.
Diane’s voice came out thin as thread.
“What does any of this have to do with her?”
Julian looked at me.
This part was mine.
So I said it.
“Because my mother was Julian Cross’s sister.”
Silence.
Pure and total.
Evan blinked at me as if language itself had failed.
Richard’s shoulders sagged for one terrible second.
He knew then that I knew everything.
