Chapter 13 - The Father in the Press Room
Security moved instantly.
The reporter did not resist.
He raised both hands.
“My name is Anthony Tancredi.”
Mark stared across the press room.
“You’re dead.”
“So are half the people in this family.”
Eliza almost laughed despite everything.
Anthony was taken into a secure room.
Mark refused to sit.
“Why?”
Anthony looked older than his photographs.
Tired.
“I had enemies.”
“You had a son.”
“I know.”
“You left me with people who told me you died.”
“I thought it kept you safe.”
Mark laughed bitterly.
“Everybody in this story loves that sentence.”
Eliza looked at him.
He had learned it from her.
Anthony explained that he had helped Victoria build Crown.
Later, he discovered its true purpose.
Blackmail.
Political influence.
Financial manipulation.
When he tried leaving, Victoria threatened Mark.
So Anthony staged his death.
Mark stared.
“You could have contacted me.”
“I watched you.”
“That is not parenting.”
“No.”
Anthony’s face folded with regret.
“I know.”
He revealed the names of two remaining Crown board members.
One shocked Dominic.
Senator Richard Halston.
A nationally known politician.
The second shocked Eliza.
William Harland.
Founder of Harland & Wilson.
Her company had not merely been infiltrated.
It had been created partly to launder Crown’s legitimate operations.
“What about the seventh seat?” Dominic asked.
Anthony’s face tightened.
“I don’t know.”
“You sat on the board.”
“We never met together. Identities were compartmentalized.”
“But you have a suspicion.”
Anthony looked toward Catherine.
“Yes.”
Everyone followed his gaze.
Catherine stiffened.
“What?”
Anthony whispered:
“The seventh member used the name Nightingale.”
Catherine went pale.
Eliza noticed immediately.
“Mom?”
“I’ve heard that name.”
“Where?”
Catherine hesitated.
Eliza stood.
“No more lies.”
Catherine closed her eyes.
“Nightingale was your biological father.”
Silence.
Eliza stared.
“You knew him?”
“Yes.”
“Who was he?”
“James Holloway.”
Dominic frowned.
“I know that name.”
James Holloway had been an attorney for the Castellano family.
He disappeared shortly after Isabella died.
“Was he my father?”
“Yes.”
“And he was Crown?”
“Not originally.”
Catherine explained James spent years attempting to expose Victoria.
But eventually, power corrupted him.
He decided Crown could be controlled rather than destroyed.
“Is he alive?” Eliza asked.
Catherine’s silence answered.
“Where?”
“I don’t know.”
Anthony looked toward the television.
“You’ll know soon.”
Breaking news appeared.
Senator Halston had called for a congressional investigation into the Castellano financial network.
He presented himself as an anti-corruption reformer.
Eliza laughed.
“He is Crown.”
Anthony nodded.
“And he is trying to control the investigation.”
The battle shifted from secret rooms to public institutions.
Dominic could not solve this with intimidation.
Eliza could.
Documents.
Testimony.
Public scrutiny.
She spent days working with investigators.
Mark recovered and joined her.
Their relationship remained complicated.
They slept in separate rooms.
They spoke honestly.
Sometimes painfully.
One night Mark said:
“If you never forgive me, I’ll understand.”
Eliza looked at him.
“I might forgive you.”
Hope entered his eyes.
“That doesn’t mean we go back.”
“I know.”
“We can’t go back.”
“I know.”
“If there is an us, it has to be new.”
Mark nodded.
“I’ll take new.”
The tenderness frightened her more than danger.
Because love required trust.
And trust was the one thing everyone had destroyed.
Then a letter arrived.
Hand-delivered.
No fingerprints.
Addressed to Eliza.
Inside:
Dear Elizabeth,
You have your mother’s courage and my stubbornness.
Her hands shook.
James Holloway.
Her biological father.
The letter included a location.
An old theater in Manhattan.
Dominic refused to let her go alone.
Eliza compromised.
He waited outside.
James stood on the stage.
Seventy perhaps.
White hair.
Elegant coat.
He looked at her with tears in his eyes.
“My daughter.”
Eliza felt nothing.
“You don’t get to call me that.”
He nodded.
“Fair.”
“Did you love Isabella?”
“More than anything.”
“Then why did you join the people who destroyed her?”
James looked away.
“Because grief can make cowards believe power will fix them.”
Eliza remembered Dominic.
Maybe that was the tragedy of this entire family.
Everyone believed power could repair what power had broken.
James told her he had spent twenty years undermining Crown from inside.
Eliza laughed.
“That’s what everyone says.”
“I can prove it.”
He handed her a ledger.
The complete Crown network.
Names.
Payments.
Accounts.
Political favors.
Everything.
“Why give me this?”
“Because Victoria is dying.”
“I know.”
“And Halston will replace her.”
“Then we expose him.”
James shook his head.
“You don’t understand.”
“What?”
“Halston does not intend to survive exposure.”
Eliza froze.
“He intends to destroy the evidence.”
“How?”
James looked toward the city.
“Tomorrow night, Crown’s archival servers will be physically erased during a staged electrical fire.”
“Where?”
“Harland & Wilson.”
Eliza’s office.
The building where hundreds of employees worked.
“Will people be inside?”
James looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Eliza turned toward the door.
“Then we stop it.”
James grabbed her arm.
“There’s something else.”
She looked down at his hand.
He released her.
“The person arranging the fire is someone you trust.”
Eliza felt cold.
“Who?”
James whispered the name.
And for the first time in days, Eliza wished he had lied.
May you like
“Luca.”
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