Chapter 6 - The Other SonJulian Cross lived in Wisconsin.
He repaired boats.
That fact bothered Dominic more than Claire expected.
Not the Wisconsin part.
The boats.
His unknown half brother was not a billionaire.
Not a financier.
Not someone quietly running a competing empire.
He owned a marina workshop outside Kenosha and had twelve employees.
Claire discovered this through public records.
She refused to investigate further without Julian’s knowledge.
Dominic was less patient.
“We need to know who he is.”
“We know enough to contact him.”
“What if he’s involved?”
“In a fourteen-year-old fraud?”
“He would have been twenty-three.”
“So were millions of other people.”
Dominic paced.
Claire watched.
Then understood.
“This isn’t about the investigation.”
He stopped.
“No?”
“No.”
She closed her laptop.
“You’re afraid he knew.”
Dominic’s expression tightened.
“That your father had another family,” Claire continued. “You’re wondering whether everyone knew except you.”
He looked away.
That was answer enough.
Claire approached.
“Ask him.”
“That simple?”
“No. Simple and easy are different things.”
The distinction had become central to their marriage.
Apologies were simple.
Repair was difficult.
Truth was simple.
Living with it was not.
They contacted Julian through an attorney.
His response arrived the same afternoon.
I wondered how long it would take.
Dominic read the sentence five times.
Then drove to Wisconsin.
Claire went with him because he asked.
That mattered.
He asked.
Julian’s workshop smelled of oil, lake water, and cut wood.
A man emerged from beneath a boat hull wiping his hands on a rag.
He was tall.
Broad through the shoulders.
Dark hair graying at the temples.
And he had Carlo Carver’s eyes.
Dominic stopped walking.
Julian looked at him.
Neither spoke.
Claire remained several feet behind.
Finally Julian said, “You look like him.”
Dominic’s jaw tightened.
“So do you.”
“Unfortunately.”
There was no hug.
No cinematic reunion.
No instant brotherhood.
They sat in a small office beside the workshop.
Julian offered coffee.
Dominic declined.
Claire accepted.
It gave her something to hold while two grown men dismantled thirty-seven years of silence.
Julian had known Carlo was his father since age twelve.
His mother, Rebecca Cross, had worked for one of Carlo’s companies.
The relationship lasted less than a year.
Carlo paid child support privately.
Visited occasionally.
Never publicly acknowledged Julian.
“Did my mother know?” Dominic asked.
Julian hesitated.
“Yes.”
Dominic went rigid.
Claire watched his hand close.
“How?”
“She contacted my mother once.”
“When?”
“I was sixteen.”
“What did she want?”
“To make sure we were financially secure.”
Dominic looked stunned.
His mother had died when he was twenty-one.
He had worshipped her.
“She knew.”
“Yes.”
“And never told me.”
Julian leaned back.
“She may have been protecting you.”
“Everyone seems to have protected me with lies.”
Claire said quietly, “Dominic.”
He exhaled.
Julian noticed the exchange.
“You’re the accountant.”
Claire raised an eyebrow.
“That sounded accusatory.”
“I read the papers.”
“Then you know never to trust headlines.”
Julian smiled slightly.
The resemblance to Dominic became suddenly irritating.
“Did Carlo give you anything before he died?” Claire asked.
Julian’s expression changed.
“Yes.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“What?”
“A warning.”
About Meridian.
Carlo had visited Julian four days before his death.
He said Nathaniel Voss was cleaning up old liabilities.
People who knew too much were becoming problems.
“He told me to leave Wisconsin,” Julian said.
“Did you?”
“For three years.”
“Why come back?”
“My mother got sick.”
“Is she alive?”
“No.”
The word was flat.
Old grief.
Claire understood that kind.
Dominic asked, “Why didn’t you contact me?”
Julian laughed without humor.
“And say what? Hello, I’m the secret son your father never admitted existed?”
“You knew who I was.”
“Everyone knew who you were.”
“That isn’t an answer.”
Julian’s expression hardened.
“Fine. I didn’t contact you because Carlo told me you were becoming exactly like him.”
Silence.
Claire looked at Dominic.
He absorbed the blow without moving.
“What did that mean?”
“Suspicious. Controlling. Convinced money could solve anything.”
Julian looked at Claire.
“Apparently someone intervened.”
“Repeatedly,” she said.
Dominic almost smiled despite himself.
Then Julian opened a drawer.
Removed a flash drive.
“Carlo gave me this.”
Dominic stared.
“You’ve had evidence for fourteen years?”
“I had an encrypted drive.”
“You never opened it?”
“I tried.”
Claire held out her hand.
Julian gave it to her.
“What did Carlo say?”
“That if anyone ever reopened Meridian, this would explain why.”
“Why what?”
“Why he took the money.”
Dominic went still.
Claire looked between them.
Carlo had accepted millions.
But perhaps the ledger did not tell the entire story.
Back in Chicago, Claire’s forensic team broke the encryption in nine hours.
The drive contained video.
Carlo Carver appeared on screen.
Older.
Tired.
Alive.
Dominic stopped breathing for a moment.
Claire sat beside him.
The recording began.
“If Dominic is watching this, then either I failed or the past finally became too expensive to keep buried.”
Carlo explained Meridian.
Nathaniel Voss and several city officials had manipulated environmental reports to force industrial owners to sell.
Carlo initially participated.
He profited.
Then Arthur Rosen discovered the fraud.
Rosen threatened to expose everyone.
Days later, he died.
Carlo claimed he did not order the death.
But he helped hide evidence afterward.
Dominic’s face became stone.
Carlo continued.
“I told myself I was protecting my family.”
Claire glanced at Dominic.
The sentence cut deeply.
Because Dominic knew that excuse.
He had used versions of it himself.
Protection becoming control.
Love becoming justification.
Carlo discovered later that Voss had arranged intimidation against witnesses.
Possibly worse.
So Carlo began collecting evidence.
The money he received from Meridian had been moved into a hidden restitution account.
He intended to return it to affected families.
Before he could, he died.
Then the video changed.
Carlo leaned closer.
“Nathaniel believes fear is loyalty.”
Dominic’s eyes narrowed.
“He is wrong.”
The final sentence came quietly.
“If my sons ever meet, tell them I am sorry I gave one my name and the other my absence.”
The screen went black.
Nobody spoke.
Julian had come to Chicago for the viewing.
He stared at the dead screen.
Dominic stood.
Walked to the window.
Claire let him.
Eventually Julian said, “I spent thirty years thinking he chose you.”
Dominic turned.
“I spent thirty-seven years not knowing there was a choice.”
The brothers looked at each other.
There was too much history between them.
Most of it history neither had created.
Claire closed the laptop.
“We have enough to turn this over to federal investigators.”
Dominic nodded.
Julian asked, “And Voss?”
“We let the evidence handle him,” Claire said.
Dominic looked at her.
She looked back.
“No private justice.”
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were thinking loudly.”
Julian laughed.
Dominic glared at him.
It was the first remotely brotherly thing either had done.
Then Claire’s phone vibrated.
A message from Evan.
She read it.
Her amusement disappeared.
“What?”
Dominic asked.
Claire turned the screen.
Halcyon had suspended Bennett Accounting from the audit.
Effective immediately.
Reason:
Undisclosed conflict of interest and suspected evidence manipulation.
Attached to the announcement was a photograph of Claire entering Lakeshore Archival Services with Dominic.
May you like
Someone had been watching them.
And whoever it was had just made Claire the scandal.
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