Chapter 5 - NATHAN CROSS’S SEVENTEEN-YEAR LIE
Nathan refused to speak for four days.
He sat inside the federal interview room wearing the same calm expression he used during business negotiations.
Then prosecutors placed Isabella’s recording in front of him.
Elias’s letters.
Claire’s messages.
The hidden ledger recovered beneath the cellar.
His mask cracked.
Not because he regretted the deaths.
Because he understood the evidence had survived him.
Nathan requested to speak with Dominic alone.
The request was denied.
They met through reinforced glass with attorneys and agents present.
“You always needed witnesses,” Nathan said.
Dominic looked at him.
“No. I needed them after trusting you.”
Nathan smiled faintly.
“I made you.”
“You manipulated me.”
“I taught you to survive.”
“You murdered my wife.”
“I removed a weakness.”
Dominic’s fist closed beneath the table.
Nathan noticed.
“There he is.”
Dominic remained seated.
Nathan had spent years provoking violence to prove Dominic was exactly the man he described.
This time, Dominic refused.
“Why Isabella?”
“She found the accounts.”
“She was pregnant.”
“That made the problem permanent.”
“And Elias?”
“He became sentimental.”
“My father?”
Nathan’s smile disappeared.
Dominic had not yet found proof involving his father.
The reaction answered enough.
“What did you do?”
Nathan leaned back.
“Your father wanted to dissolve the advisory council. He believed legitimate shipping would protect the next generation.”
“He died from a heart attack.”
“He died from fear.”
“Whose?”
Nathan said nothing.
The hidden ledger contained payments to Dominic’s father’s physician two days before his death.
Another family murder disguised as natural loss.
Nathan had spent seventeen years beside Dominic because Vincent Bennett placed him there.
Bennett wanted access to Vale ports for political donors and illicit funds.
Nathan wanted the empire.
Claire wanted the wealth and status.
Together, they formed a partnership wearing the shape of friendship and marriage.
Nathan had even arranged Dominic’s Atlantic City negotiations to remove him from the estate while Mia was silenced.
“You could have taken the ledger and left,” Dominic said.
Nathan laughed.
“Men like us do not leave power.”
“Then you never knew me.”
“I knew you better than anyone.”
“No.”
Dominic stood.
“Isabella did.”
Nathan’s expression hardened.
“She wanted to make you ordinary.”
“She wanted to make me human.”
Dominic walked away.
Nathan struck the glass.
“Without me, you would have died years ago!”
Dominic turned once.
“Without you, fewer people would have.”
May you like
It was the last private conversation they ever had.
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