Chapter 6 - The Second Cross Brother
Hope is cruel when it arrives after grief.
For fourteen months, I had constructed my life around Adrian’s absence.
I had given birth without him.
Signed forms without him.
Chosen Fern’s pediatrician without him.
Held our daughter through fevers and vaccinations and nights when she refused to sleep.
I learned how to be both parents because I believed I had no choice.
Now Helena Cross had dropped one sentence into my life and reopened everything.
Maybe Adrian was alive.
I hated her for it.
I hated myself more for believing it.
Stellan wanted to leave for Lake Geneva immediately.
I refused.
“We decrypt the drive first.”
“It may take hours.”
“Then we wait.”
“The house could contain the ledger.”
“And the drive could contain a warning that walking into that house gets us killed.”
Stellan stared at me.
I stared back.
Darius cleared his throat.
“She has a point.”
Stellan turned.
“You’ve become unusually supportive of her.”
Darius kept his face neutral.
“She argues more effectively than most of your employees.”
“I’m noticing.”
Three hours later, the encryption broke.
Darius connected the drive to an isolated computer.
A single folder appeared.
ADRIAN.
Inside were photographs.
Documents.
Voice recordings.
A video.
The most recent file was dated two days before the accident.
I pressed play.
Adrian appeared on the screen.
Alive.
My throat closed instantly.
He was sitting in a cheap motel room.
Same dark sweater I remembered.
Same tired smile.
“Selene, if you ever see this…”
I covered my mouth.
Stellan stood beside me.
Adrian continued.
“…then I failed to fix things quietly.”
He looked away from the camera.
“I should have told you who I was.”
My eyes filled.
“I kept thinking I would solve everything first. Then I could come home and explain. You’d be angry. You’d probably throw something at me.”
Despite everything, I laughed through my tears.
He knew me.
“I’d deserve it.”
His smile disappeared.
“Marcus knows about you.”
My laughter died.
“He doesn’t know about the baby yet. I’m trying to keep it that way.”
I leaned toward the screen.
“You knew,” I whispered.
“I found out from Marissa before Selene did,” Adrian continued. “That makes me sound worse than I already do. I was monitoring her clinic because Marcus had people everywhere. I only meant to keep her safe.”
He inhaled.
“I’m going to stage my death tomorrow.”
The room around me disappeared.
“If it works, I’ll cross into Canada and wait until Stellan finds the ledger. If it doesn’t…”
His eyes lowered.
“I’m sorry.”
Then he looked directly into the camera.
“Stellan.”
The man beside me stiffened.
“If you’re watching this, I need you to hear something I was too proud to say when it mattered.”
Adrian paused.
“Evan didn’t die because of you.”
Stellan stopped breathing.
“He made his own choice.”
Adrian rubbed his face.
“I know you blamed yourself. I did too. That’s why I took his name. I thought if I finished what we started, maybe his death would mean something.”
Stellan’s eyes were shining.
He didn’t wipe them.
“Don’t turn into Dad trying to avenge us.”
Adrian leaned closer.
“Protect Selene. Protect the baby. And if I don’t make it back, let them have something normal.”
The video ended.
Nobody spoke for a long time.
Then Darius opened another file.
A map.
Lake Geneva.
One property highlighted.
The old Cross family house.
Beneath it:
WINDOW / EAST BEDROOM / BELOW THE SILL.
Stellan looked at me.
“We leave in twenty minutes.”
This time I didn’t argue.
The Lake Geneva house had been abandoned for years.
It stood behind iron gates near the water, enormous and quiet beneath a gray Wisconsin sky.
Stellan entered first.
Dust covered the floors.
Furniture remained beneath white sheets.
Family photographs still hung on the walls.
Three boys appeared repeatedly.
Stellan.
Evan.
Adrian.
I stopped before one photograph.
Adrian looked sixteen.
He was grinning while pushing Stellan into the lake.
Stellan noticed.
“He thought he was funny.”
“He was.”
“Unfortunately.”
For a second, he sounded like a brother instead of a crime boss.
We climbed to the east bedroom.
“This was Evan’s,” Stellan said.
The window had been replaced long ago.
“What happened?”
“We were twelve, ten, and eight.”
“Who was who?”
“I was twelve.”
“Of course.”
He ignored that.
“Evan threw a baseball inside. Broke the window. Father blamed Adrian.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian confessed.”
I frowned.
“Why would he do that?”
“Father was harder on Evan.”
That told me more about their childhood than Stellan probably intended.
We removed the panel beneath the sill.
Inside was a small metal container.
Stellan pulled it out.
My heart raced.
He opened it.
No ledger.
Another photograph.
And a key card.
The photograph showed three young men.
Stellan.
Adrian.
And someone I didn’t recognize.
On the back, Adrian had written:
ONE OF US BETRAYED THE OTHERS.
I handed it to Stellan.
His face changed.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“Marcus Vale’s son.”
I studied the stranger.
He was young in the photograph.
Handsome.
Sharp eyes.
“Name?”
“Julian Vale.”
“Where is he now?”
Stellan looked at me.
“He works for me.”
A chill ran down my spine.
“What?”
“He has for eight years.”
“What does he do?”
Stellan looked toward Darius.
Darius’s expression had become grim.
“Financial operations.”
I remembered the documents.
Accounts.
Payments.
The blue ledger.
Someone inside the Cross organization had betrayed the brothers.
Adrian had left a photograph pointing directly at the son of the man hunting him.
Stellan pulled out his phone.
No signal.
Darius checked his.
“Nothing.”
Then we heard it.
A vehicle outside.
Then another.
Darius moved toward the window.
His expression hardened.
“Three SUVs.”
“Yours?” I asked.
“No.”
Stellan grabbed my arm.
“Downstairs.”
We reached the hallway when glass shattered somewhere below.
Not gunfire.
A window breaking.
Then footsteps entered the house.
Multiple people.
Stellan pushed me toward a narrow staircase.
“Basement.”
“What about you?”
“Go.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
His eyes flashed.
“This is not a romantic debate, Selene.”
“I didn’t say it was.”
Another crash.
Darius appeared.
“They’re coming through the west entrance.”
Stellan looked at the key card in his hand.
Then toward an old portrait.
He suddenly pulled the painting aside.
Behind it was a steel door.
“You knew that was there?”
“I grew up here.”
He swiped the card.
Green light.
The door opened.
We entered.
Stellan closed it behind us.
Darkness.
Then emergency lights flickered on.
A passage stretched downward beneath the house.
I stared at him.
“What kind of childhood did you have?”
“You don’t want the complete answer.”
Footsteps passed somewhere above.
We descended.
At the bottom waited a small underground garage.
One vehicle remained beneath a tarp.
Darius pulled it away.
A vintage black Mercedes.
Stellan almost smiled.
“Evan.”
“What?”
“He restored this.”
Darius found the keys in the glove compartment.
The engine turned over.
We exited through a concealed gate leading toward the lakeshore road.
Only when the house disappeared behind the trees did I finally breathe.
Then Stellan’s phone regained signal.
Twenty-three missed calls.
All from the estate.
He answered immediately.
Mrs. Thornbury was crying.
Stellan’s face changed.
“What happened?”
I grabbed his arm.
“Fern?”
He looked at me.
For the first time since I met him, Stellan Cross looked afraid.
“The mansion was breached.”
My blood turned cold.
“Where is my daughter?”
He listened.
Then closed his eyes.
“Fern is safe.”
I exhaled.
But he wasn’t relieved.
“What?”
Stellan looked toward Darius.
“Julian Vale is gone.”
Darius went still.
Stellan continued.
“And so is every file we had on Adrian.”
The betrayal had finally acquired a face.
May you like
And Julian Vale had just proven Adrian was right.
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