Chapter 5 - SIERRA HAD NOT BEEN COLE’S MISTRESS BY ACCIDENT
Gabriel called Sierra immediately.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Cole looked stunned.
“She never told me you were her father.”
“She doesn’t use my name.”
“Why?”
“Because she hasn’t spoken to me in three years.”
Lauren folded her arms.
“This family reunion is touching, but where is she?”
Gabriel ignored the sarcasm.
Sierra’s mother raised her primarily.
Gabriel’s work had made him absent.
Secretive.
Controlling.
Sierra eventually cut contact.
Apparently she had not stopped investigating him.
Or David.
Cole sat down.
“Wait.”
Everyone looked at him.
“Sierra approached me.”
Lauren felt another blade turn.
“What?”
“At a Whitmore event.”
“When?”
“Five months ago.”
“Before the affair?”
“Yes.”
“What did she want?”
“Information about my father.”
Gabriel cursed under his breath.
Sierra suspected Harrison Whitmore was connected to David Monroe’s disappearance.
She used Cole to gain access to internal Whitmore files.
The affair began later.
That did not absolve either of them.
But it changed the shape.
“What did she find?” Lauren asked.
Cole looked at Gabriel.
“I don’t know.”
“You slept with her for four months and never asked?”
“She told me enough to make me afraid of my father.”
Lauren almost admired how useless he sounded.
Then her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photograph.
Sierra.
Standing beside an older man in a remote-looking room.
The man was thin.
Gray-bearded.
But Lauren knew the eyes.
She had seen them every morning of her childhood.
Her father.
Alive.
Her knees nearly failed.
The message beneath:
IF YOU WANT THE TRUTH, COME WITHOUT HARRISON.
No address.
Then another message.
NOT COLE.
Another.
NOT GABRIEL.
Lauren looked up.
“My father doesn’t trust any of you.”
Gabriel’s jaw tightened.
“He has reasons.”
“What did you do?”
Gabriel did not answer.
Lauren stepped closer.
“What did you do?”
Finally:
“I gave Harrison one file.”
Cole looked at him.
“What file?”
“David’s location.”
Lauren stared.
Gabriel explained.
Two years earlier, David contacted him after decades of silence.
He was living in Canada under another name.
He wanted to know whether Lauren was safe.
Gabriel investigated Cole.
At the time, he found no affair.
No guardianship.
No obvious financial attack.
Then Harrison approached Gabriel through an intermediary.
He claimed David had stolen millions from Whitmore Capital.
He wanted his location.
“You believed him?”
“No.”
“Then why?”
Gabriel looked ashamed.
“My daughter was in trouble.”
Sierra had been arrested abroad after being caught with confidential corporate records.
Harrison arranged for the charges to disappear.
In exchange, Gabriel gave him one lead on David.
“I thought David had already moved.”
“Did he?”
“I don’t know.”
Lauren turned away.
Everyone had used someone they claimed to love as justification.
Cole used silence to protect the family.
Gabriel betrayed David to protect Sierra.
Harrison wanted Lauren’s trust to protect Whitmore Capital.
Enough.
Her phone buzzed again.
This time:
QUEENS. 11:30 A.M. OLD MONROE PRINTING BUILDING.
Lauren recognized the name.
Her grandfather once owned a printing business in Long Island City.
Closed for twenty-five years.
Gabriel said, “You’re not going alone.”
Lauren looked at him.
“I am absolutely not taking instructions from another man hiding half the story.”
She called the police contact assigned to the hospital.
Then her own attorney.
Then arranged childcare protection for the twins.
If she went, she would go with law enforcement aware.
Her terms.
At 11:21, Lauren arrived outside the abandoned printing building.
Sierra waited inside.
No Cole.
No Gabriel.
David Monroe stood near an old press.
Lauren stopped.
“Dad?”
He looked at her.
Tears filled his eyes.
“Laurie.”
No one had called her that since childhood.
She crossed the room and slapped him.
Then hugged him so hard he stumbled.
“You let me bury you.”
“I know.”
“You let Mom bury you.”
“I know.”
“Why?”
David cried.
“Because Harrison Whitmore told me if I came home, you were next.”
Lauren pulled away.
“What did he do to you?”
David looked toward Sierra.
Then revealed the secret.
May you like
“Harrison didn’t just steal from investors.”
“He arranged your mother’s death.”
