Chapter 13 - The Father’s Last Deal
Julian stared at the photograph.
His father looked healthy.
Young.
Confident.
Beside him stood Cassandra.
Impossible.
Unless Cassandra had been lying about her age.
Julian checked the date.
The photograph had been taken twenty-three years earlier.
Cassandra had not been thirty.
She had been seventeen.
Claire explained.
“Elena was the daughter of your father’s financial adviser.”
She had been raised inside the family’s criminal network.
She learned everything.
Money.
Blackmail.
Political influence.
And murder.
Julian’s father had used her.
Then discarded her.
She spent years planning revenge.
“She targeted me.”
“No,” Claire said.
“She targeted your name.”
Julian understood.
The DeLuca empire was never the prize.
Its destruction was.
But Cassandra had made one mistake.
She had underestimated Lily.
The bluebird turn.
The hidden room.
The old recordings.
All of them had exposed connections Cassandra thought were buried.
Julian made a decision.
They would return to Chicago.
They would let Cassandra believe she had won.
They would give her what she wanted.
Control of the DeLuca empire.
Then they would destroy her evidence.
Legally.
Publicly.
Completely.
Claire looked afraid.
“If we fail, she will come after Lily.”
Julian took her hand.
“She will never reach our daughter.”
The word our made Claire close her eyes.
For four years, she had feared hearing it.
May you like
Now it sounded like home.
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