Chapter 9 - BEFORE I MET BRANDON
Dominic did not speak for several seconds.
“Before I met Brandon?”
He walked to his desk.
Opened a private archive.
Then stopped.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“There was an investment.”
My skin prickled.
“You forgot?”
“It was eleven years ago.”
“Who made it?”
“Dad.”
Our father had died eight years earlier.
Three years before Brandon and I married.
Dominic opened the archived file.
Whitmore Capital had purchased a minority position in a small defense logistics startup.
The startup’s founder was not Brandon.
It was a man named Charles Hale.
Brandon’s father.
I stared at the screen.
“Brandon told me his father died broke.”
“He did.”
“Then why was Dad investing in him?”
Dominic opened correspondence.
Charles Hale had developed a routing algorithm with military applications.
Whitmore Capital provided early funding.
Then the relationship ended abruptly.
“Why?”
Dominic read the termination note.
“Potential misappropriation of proprietary software.”
I frowned.
“Charles stole from Whitmore?”
“Apparently.”
Then another document appeared.
Settlement agreement.
Charles transferred his remaining company interest to a trust.
Beneficiary:
BRANDON MICHAEL HALE.
I stared at it.
“So Dad knew Brandon existed.”
“Yes.”
“Did Brandon know Whitmore funded his father?”
“I don’t know.”
Victor had weaponized this fact because he knew it would make me doubt Dominic.
It worked.
“Why didn’t you recognize Brandon’s name when I introduced him?”
“Hale isn’t rare.”
“And the company?”
“He renamed it twice.”
Dominic looked genuinely frustrated.
“I should have caught it.”
A second archived note changed everything.
Charles Hale had accused a Whitmore executive of stealing his algorithm.
The name of that executive was redacted.
Dominic frowned.
“That makes no sense.”
“Can we recover the original?”
“We can try.”
Nathaniel joined us remotely.
Within hours, legal archives produced an unredacted copy.
The executive named was not my father.
It was Victor Harrington.
I sat back.
“Victor worked with Whitmore?”
“Consultant.”
Dominic’s expression hardened.
“Before he built Harrington Aerospace.”
The story rearranged itself.
Charles Hale created valuable software.
Whitmore funded him.
Victor consulted on the project.
Then Charles was accused of theft.
The company collapsed.
Victor later launched a similar system through Harrington Aerospace.
“What if Charles didn’t steal from us?”
Dominic looked at me.
“What if Victor stole from Charles?”
Silence.
Then Nathaniel said.
“That would explain why Victor needs Brandon.”
“How?”
“If Brandon is Charles Hale’s heir, merging the businesses could retroactively bury ownership claims.”
My stomach tightened.
Brandon had spent his life believing his father died disgraced.
Victor might have approached him with a different story.
A story that made Whitmore the enemy.
I suddenly understood Brandon’s anger at my family name.
It had been too immediate.
Too personal.
“Brandon knew.”
Dominic nodded.
“At least some of it.”
The affair was still betrayal.
The forged shares were still fraud.
But underneath them might be a revenge plan older than our marriage.
Then Caleb entered.
“We found Brandon.”
“Where?”
“At his father’s old storage property in Maryland.”
“Alone?”
“No.”
“Who is with him?”
May you like
Caleb placed a photograph on the desk.
Victor Harrington.
