Chapter 3 - FIVE YEARS OF LIES
I said nothing.
My father repeated himself.
“Jason?”
“How do you know about them?”
Silence stretched between us.
Thomas Miller had taught me that silence was a weapon.
The person who filled it first usually lost.
For once, I was willing to wait.
Finally, he sighed.
“Claire called someone in legal. Legal contacted me.”
It sounded reasonable.
That made me trust it even less.
“Who in legal?”
“I don’t know.”
“You just said they contacted you.”
“Jason, don’t turn this into one of your interrogations.”
“There are two children in my office who appear to be my sons. Their mother vanished from my parking garage after being chased through my building. So yes, Dad. This is an interrogation.”
Another long pause.
“Bring them to my house.”
“No.”
“I have security.”
“So do I.”
“Jason—”
“Did Emma contact you after we broke up?”
He stopped breathing for half a second.
That was enough.
I disconnected.
Then I called Claire.
“Find out every person who knew those boys were here before eight this morning.”
“I’m already pulling the logs.”
“And arrange a DNA test.”
Her expression softened.
“You need one?”
“No.”
I looked at Liam, who was showing Lucas how to stack sugar packets into a tower.
“But courts do.”
The test was completed privately that afternoon.
The result came back before midnight.
Probability of paternity: 99.99 percent.
I stared at the document alone in my office.
There was no shock left.
Only grief.
I had sons.
For four years, they had woken up without me.
Learned to walk without me.
Spoken their first words without me.
Had birthdays without me.
Gotten sick without me.
Asked questions about their father while I spent those same years negotiating hotel acquisitions, buying a penthouse I barely slept in, and convincing magazines that I had built the perfect life.
I opened my desk drawer.
Inside was an expensive watch my father had given me when Miller Meridian crossed ten billion dollars in assets.
On the back, he had engraved four words.
YOU CHOSE THE RIGHT LIFE.
For the first time, I understood how cruel they were.
Claire knocked.
“We found something.”
She placed a laptop in front of me.
“Emma contacted the company seven times five years ago.”
I looked up sharply.
“What?”
“Emails. Calls. Two certified letters.”
“I never saw them.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“The emails were redirected.”
“By whom?”
“Your former chief of staff.”
“Daniel Cross?”
Claire nodded.
Daniel was now my chief operating officer.
My second-in-command.
My closest business ally.
He had been with me for twelve years.
I looked back at the screen.
“What about the letters?”
“Signed for downstairs. Then transferred to executive administration.”
“Daniel again?”
“One was. The other was signed for by your father’s assistant.”
I felt something inside me crack.
Claire opened another file.
“I found an archived email from Emma to Daniel.”
I read it.
Daniel,
I am not asking Jason for money.
I am pregnant.
He deserves to know.
Please stop blocking my calls.
Tell him there are two babies.
I don’t care what Mr. Miller thinks of me.
This is Jason’s decision, not his father’s.
Emma.
My hands went cold.
Daniel had replied.
Jason has made his decision clear. Do not contact him again.
That sentence had been written while I was in Singapore closing the biggest deal of my career.
I had never authorized it.
“What else?” I asked.
Claire hesitated.
“Emma received money.”
My chest tightened.
“How much?”
“Two hundred fifty thousand dollars from a private holding company connected to your father.”
I stood so quickly the chair struck the wall.
“She took it?”
“No.”
Claire turned the laptop.
“The payment was returned the next morning.”
I closed my eyes.
Of course she returned it.
Emma once argued with me for an hour because I tried to pay her rent when her landlord raised it.
She would have lived in her car before accepting money to disappear.
“What happened after that?”
“She moved to Philadelphia for about two years, then came back to New York. She worked remotely as a forensic accountant.”
“Doing what?”
Claire opened another document.
“For Harbridge Compliance Group.”
I knew the name.
They audited financial institutions.
Including mine.
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
That changed everything.
Emma had not simply returned to New York.
She had entered my company professionally.
“Was she assigned to us?”
“Not officially.”
“What does that mean?”
Claire took a breath.
“Harbridge was reviewing one of our pension fund acquisitions. Emma discovered irregular transfers involving five shell companies.”
“Which acquisition?”
“Crescent Municipal Pension.”
I knew it immediately.
Forty-three thousand public employees.
Teachers.
Firefighters.
Transit workers.
Miller Meridian had purchased management rights to part of the fund eighteen months earlier.
“What kind of transfers?”
“Almost sixty-eight million dollars disappeared through consulting contracts.”
My anger became something colder.
“Who approved them?”
“The authorization codes point to executive accounts.”
“Mine?”
“Three of them.”
I stared at her.
“I never approved anything like that.”
“I know.”
“How?”
“Because one transaction was authorized while you were giving a live interview from London.”
Someone had used my credentials.
Someone inside my company was stealing money while using my identity as protection.
And Emma had found it.
“Why didn’t she come to me?”
Claire gave me a sad look.
“Maybe because the last time she tried, people made her believe you didn’t want to hear from her.”
That landed harder than any accusation.
A noise came from the outer office.
We both turned.
One of the twins screamed.
I ran.
Lucas stood beside my desk crying.
Liam pointed toward the hallway.
“A man was here.”
Marcus and two guards rushed in.
“What man?”
“He looked through the door,” Liam whispered. “Then he ran.”
Marcus immediately checked the access system.
No unauthorized entry.
That meant whoever had been there possessed executive access.
I crouched in front of Liam.
“Did you recognize him?”
He nodded slowly.
My heartbeat accelerated.
“Where have you seen him?”
“At Mommy’s house.”
“Was he her friend?”
Liam shook his head.
“She made us hide when he came.”
“Do you know his name?”
Lucas answered.
“Mr. Cross.”
I looked at Claire.
Daniel.
My chief operating officer.
The man who had blocked Emma’s pregnancy announcement.
The man who had access to my passwords, my schedule, my buildings, and nearly every financial system inside Miller Meridian.
I called Marcus.
“Find Daniel.”
“He left the building fifteen minutes ago.”
“Where?”
“No one knows.”
I picked up Emma’s cracked phone from an evidence bag.
The police had allowed me to photograph its damaged memory card before taking it.
One audio file had survived.
Timestamp: 4:52 a.m.
Twenty-two minutes before Emma entered my building.
I pressed play.
Emma’s frightened voice filled the room.
“Jason, if you ever hear this, Daniel knows about the boys. He knows I copied the records.”
There was a noise behind her.
A car horn.
Then Emma continued.
“I made one mistake. I told your father what I found.”
My breath stopped.
“He told me he would fix it.”
A sob caught in her voice.
“But Daniel showed up thirty minutes later.”
The recording ended with one final sentence.
“So either your father betrayed me…”
A crash interrupted her.
May you like
Then Emma whispered:
“…or someone is using him too.”
