Chapter 8 - THE TRAP AT PRESCOTT TOWER
The police wanted Damon to stay home.
He refused.
Cassandra wanted the twins moved somewhere nobody connected to the Prescott name.
Damon agreed immediately.
That surprised her.
Within two hours, Luke and Violet were transported with Cassandra’s sister Melissa to a secure property outside the city.
No corporate security.
No Prescott employees.
Only federal agents assigned through the investigation into Julian’s communications.
Damon hugged the twins before they left.
Luke wrapped both arms around his neck.
“You coming?”
“Yes.”
“Promise?”
Damon looked at Cassandra before answering.
“I promise I will do everything I can.”
He had learned not to promise what he could not control.
Violet handed him Walter.
“You need him.”
Damon stared at the elephant.
“Why?”
“You look scared.”
He took it.
“Thank you.”
For the next twelve hours, a billionaire CEO carried a gray stuffed elephant through a criminal investigation.
Nobody laughed.
The threatening photograph was traced to a burner phone purchased by a Prescott Systems security contractor.
His name was Miles Denton.
Denton had worked for Julian for nine years.
He disappeared the morning the board removed Julian.
Federal agents searched his apartment.
Empty.
But they found photographs.
Damon.
Cassandra.
The twins.
Melissa’s house.
The Boise hotel.
Rosalie’s old certified-mail receipt copied from Cassandra’s records.
This had been planned.
Not simply retaliation.
Denton had been monitoring them since Christmas.
Naomi Grant uncovered the final connection.
Julian had transferred two million dollars into an offshore account controlled by Denton three days before his removal.
“He hired him,” Cassandra said.
Damon nodded.
“Or bought his silence.”
“What are we doing?”
“Giving Denton what he wants.”
“No.”
Cassandra stood.
“You are not turning yourself into bait.”
Damon looked at her.
“He threatened our children.”
“So your solution is to make them lose their father?”
The word hit him.
Father.
Cassandra saw it land.
“Then we do it differently,” he said.
The plan centered on Prescott Tower.
Julian believed Damon had recovered the original pregnancy letter.
He had not.
Only the scan existed.
But federal investigators allowed Julian to believe otherwise.
Damon sent a message through an intermediary.
I HAVE THE ORIGINAL AND CROSS’S PAYMENT RECORDS. MIDNIGHT. MY OFFICE. COME ALONE IF YOU WANT TO DEAL.
The tower was quietly evacuated.
Federal agents occupied three floors.
Cassandra was supposed to remain in a command vehicle across the street.
She did.
For twenty-seven minutes.
Then cameras on the forty-first floor went dark.
“Why did they go out?”
An agent responded.
“Possible network interruption.”
“That’s not supposed to happen.”
“We’re handling it.”
Cassandra stared at the tower.
Her instincts screamed.
Inside, Damon waited in his dark office.
Walter sat ridiculously on his desk.
He had refused to leave the elephant behind.
At 12:11 a.m., the private elevator opened.
Julian Cross stepped out.
Damon stared.
He had expected Denton.
Julian smiled.
“You look disappointed.”
“You’re under investigation.”
“Not arrest.”
“Yet.”
Julian walked into the office.
“You really believed I would trust Denton to fix this?”
“Where is he?”
“Gone.”
“Dead?”
Julian shrugged.
Damon’s stomach turned.
“You threatened my children.”
“I reminded you of priorities.”
Damon’s eyes darkened.
“You learned nothing.”
“I built you.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because you keep forgetting.”
Julian approached the desk.
“Before me, you were a clever engineer with thirty thousand dollars in debt and a wife complaining you worked too much.”
“Don’t talk about her.”
Julian smiled.
“There he is.”
He spotted Walter.
Then laughed.
“My God.”
Damon’s jaw tightened.
“A stuffed elephant?”
“My daughter gave it to me.”
“You were once terrifying in negotiations.”
“I still am.”
“No. You’ve become domestic.”
Julian said the word like a disease.
Damon looked at him calmly.
“You destroyed my marriage because you were afraid I might go home.”
“I preserved your potential.”
“You paid Cassandra’s lawyer.”
“Yes.”
“You intercepted her pregnancy letter.”
“Yes.”
“You ordered people to hide my children’s births.”
“Yes.”
Julian spread his hands.
“And you became Damon Prescott.”
Damon stared at him.
“I already was Damon Prescott.”
Julian’s smile faltered.
That was the truth he could not tolerate.
He needed to believe he had created Damon.
Otherwise he had sacrificed a family for nothing but greed.
Damon slid a red folder across the desk.
“You want the evidence?”
Julian opened it.
Empty pages.
His face changed.
Damon smiled.
“You still think I’m the twenty-nine-year-old who trusted you.”
Julian reached inside his coat.
Damon had expected a gun.
Instead, Julian pulled a small remote.
He pressed it.
Nothing happened.
Then smoke erupted in the executive archive room next door.
Fire alarms screamed.
Julian ran.
Damon tackled him before he reached the elevator.
They crashed against the wall.
Julian swung wildly.
Damon took the hit.
Then federal agents rushed from the emergency stairwell.
Except the security door had been electronically sealed.
Damon realized Julian had planned the building systems.
He had built access into them years earlier.
Julian grabbed a metal sculpture from a table and struck Damon across the shoulder.
Damon fell.
Julian ran toward the archive room.
Fire spread behind the glass.
He was destroying documents.
Damon followed.
Then the private elevator opened.
Cassandra stepped out.
Damon’s face went white.
“What are you doing here?”
“The cameras died.”
“GET BACK IN THE ELEVATOR.”
Julian appeared through smoke.
He saw Cassandra.
And smiled.
“You.”
Cassandra froze.
Julian moved toward her.
Damon stepped between them.
“You wanted me angry,” Damon said.
His voice was terrifyingly calm.
“Congratulations.”
Julian raised the sculpture.
Before he could swing, Cassandra grabbed the wall-mounted fire extinguisher.
She fired directly into Julian’s face.
He shouted.
Damon tackled him.
The federal agents finally forced the stairwell door.
Within seconds, Julian Cross was pinned to the floor.
Handcuffs closed around his wrists.
The fire suppression system activated overhead.
Water poured across the office.
Julian looked up at Damon.
“You’ll regret choosing them.”
Damon glanced toward Cassandra.
“No.”
Then at the gray elephant soaking wet on his desk.
He almost laughed.
“I regret that it took me this long.”
Agents dragged Julian away.
Cassandra ran to Damon.
“You’re bleeding.”
“It’s nothing.”
“You’re bleeding from your head.”
“I’ve had worse meetings.”
“That isn’t funny.”
“It was a little funny.”
She touched his face.
Her hand trembled.
“I thought you were dead.”
“I’m here.”
Something inside her broke.
She kissed him.
Not carefully.
Not thoughtfully.
Three years of anger, grief, longing, and unfinished love collided in one desperate kiss beneath emergency lights and falling sprinkler water.
When they separated, Damon stared at her.
“What was that?”
Cassandra breathed hard.
“A terrible decision.”
“Can we make it again?”
She laughed through tears.
Then kissed him again.
By sunrise, Julian Cross had been charged with witness intimidation, conspiracy, obstruction, wire fraud, attorney bribery, unlawful interception of communications, and multiple offenses connected to the threat against the twins.
Denton was located alive at a private airfield trying to leave the country.
He agreed to cooperate.
The case was over.
The lies were not.
The lost years were not.
May you like
But for the first time, Damon and Cassandra were no longer standing on opposite sides of what had happened.
They were standing together.
