Chapter 7 - THE MAN WHO DISAPPEARED WITH THE TRUTH
We found Elliot in a motel outside Newark.
Gabriel’s security team reached him first.
Not Julian’s.
That was my condition.
Elliot looked terrible.
Bruised.
Thinner.
But alive.
Dalia ran to him.
Then stopped three feet away.
Neither knew what they were to each other anymore.
Elliot looked at her stomach.
His face broke.
“Mine?”
Dalia nodded.
He cried.
Julian looked away.
That was the first moment I felt sorry for him.
Not because Dalia had betrayed him.
Because he had finally become the public fool I once was.
And it clearly hurt.
Elliot told us everything.
He had discovered internal code libraries used across Julian’s companies.
Some included architecture derived from Henry Bennett’s original patents.
Not illegal by itself.
Victor had purchased certain rights.
But newer modules appeared to originate from a private source repository created after Henry’s death.
That meant someone had accessed my father’s hidden work.
“Who?” I asked.
Elliot looked at Margaret.
She had not come.
Good.
“Victor.”
“After my father died?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“He found part of the archive.”
“Part?”
“The commercial layer.”
Gabriel frowned.
“What remained?”
“A security protocol.”
Elliot slid a drive across the table.
“The final system could be worth more than the companies built on top of it.”
Julian looked at me.
“This belongs to you.”
I almost laughed.
For years, he called himself self-made.
Now he was telling me part of his empire might legally trace back to my family.
Elliot continued:
“Victor didn’t want Khloe to know.”
“So he pushed us together,” Julian said.
“Yes.”
“Then why sabotage our fertility?”
Elliot looked at him.
“Because once Khloe married you, Victor got access to her family papers through household records.”
My stomach turned.
“He searched my things.”
“Yes.”
“He found what he needed.”
“Most of it.”
“And then he didn’t need me anymore.”
Silence.
That was the ugliest truth yet.
My relationship had started as opportunity.
My marriage had become access.
And once Victor extracted value, he preferred no child complicating inheritance.
Julian looked shattered.
“I didn’t know.”
“I know.”
I believed him.
Again, that did not erase what he did later.
Elliot turned to me.
“Victor also created a trust.”
“What trust?”
“For your future child.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Not generosity.”
Of course not.
The trust contained shares in Julian’s first company.
Shares originally tied to the Bennett patent rights.
Victor planned to control those shares through the Duval family if Julian and I ever had a child.
But we never did.
Now I was pregnant with Gabriel’s child.
That broke Victor’s entire design.
Gabriel asked:
“Who controls the trust now?”
Elliot looked toward Julian.
“Technically?”
“Yes.”
“Julian.”
Julian froze.
“I’ve never seen it.”
“Your mother has.”
Of course.
Margaret again.
Then Dalia asked:
“Why did Margaret take you?”
Elliot looked at her.
“She wanted the drive.”
“The archive?”
“Yes.”
“Did she get it?”
“No.”
He smiled faintly.
“I gave her a fake.”
Julian almost laughed.
Then Elliot’s face became serious.
“But she has something else.”
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Your father’s handwritten notebook.”
My chest tightened.
My mother had told me Dad kept one notebook hidden after his accident.
She never knew where it went.
Margaret had it.
May you like
And Elliot whispered:
“The last page names the person who caused your father’s accident.”
