Chapter 8 - The Sins of the Patriarch
The confession hung in the air like poison gas.
Julian felt as though the physical walls of the interview room were shrinking, crushing him beneath decades of deceit. He stared at the woman who had raised him, feeling nothing but a profound, sickening alienation.
"Marcus," Julian repeated, the word tasting like bile. "Your own brother."
"We were young, Julian," Victoria whispered, her aristocratic facade completely dissolving, revealing the raw, twisted rot beneath. "Before I was married off to your father to save the family shipping lines. The Sterling name was already drowning in debt in the nineties. Arthur—your father—was a tyrant. If he had discovered that the child I carried wasn't his heir, he would have cast me out with nothing. Not a penny. Not a roof."
"So you stole her life," Julian said, his fists trembling at his sides. "To protect your jewelry? To protect your social club?"
"I saved her life!" Victoria screamed, the chains rattling furiously as she lunged forward. "Arthur would have killed her! You didn't know him, Julian! You remember the gentle drunk who bought you ponies! You didn't see him when the doors were locked! I placed Clara with a safe family! I paid for her upkeep until the day Arthur died!"
"You didn't place her with a family," Julian countered coldly, pulling the St. Jude's record from his coat and throwing it onto the table. "You left her in a state ward. The payments stopped the second you secured your trust distributions. She grew up an orphan, scraping by on scholarships, while you bought penthouses in Paris."
Victoria looked at the paperwork, her pupils contracting. "Where... where did you get this?"
"She works at St. Mary's," Julian whispered. "She was the nurse who saved your granddaughter's life tonight while your brother's hitman was trying to murder them both."
Victoria’s jaw dropped. A look of sheer, unadulterated horror washed over her features—not because she felt guilt, but because she recognized the terrifying geometric precision of fate closing in around her throat.
"Julian," she grabbed his sleeve with her chained hands, her voice dropping into a frantic, pleading rasp. "You have to listen to me. Marcus... Marcus doesn't just want the trust. He found out about Clara three months ago. He realized that if she ever surfaced, her DNA would prove the incestuous line, nullifying the entire Sterling corporate charter under the morals clause of the grandfather trust. He won't just kill Elena, Julian. He's going to kill Clara. And he will kill that child in the incubator."
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Before Julian could answer, the door of the interview room was kicked inward with tremendous force.
The burly desk sergeant crumpled onto the floor, clutching his bleeding face. Standing in the doorway were two men in dark tactical suits, suppressed automatic pistols raised, their sights leveled directly at Julian's chest.
