Chapter 2 - THE FIRE AT CRESTVIEW
Within three hours of the ruined wedding, Clara was sitting in a high-security penthouse suite in downtown Manhattan. Lily was fast asleep in the next room, bathed, fed, and under twenty-four-hour armed guard.
Mark paced back and forth in front of the floor-to-ceiling windows, holding a glass of scotch he hadn’t touched.
“The media is losing its mind, Clara,” Mark said, turning his laptop toward her. “Julian already held a press conference. He claimed you had a nervous breakdown at the altar due to the stress of the wedding and your mother’s history of mental illness.”
Clara gritted her teeth, staring at the screen. Julian looked impeccably calm on television, wearing a dark suit, expressing ‘deep concern and sorrow’ for his fragile fiancée.
“He’s gaslighting the entire public,” Clara murmured. “He’s setting the stage to declare me mentally incompetent so he can take control of Sterling Global.”
“It gets worse,” Mark said quietly. “I sent a team to check on Lily’s home in Crestview. The house was completely gutted by fire early this morning. The local police ruled it a gas leak. Lily’s father… he didn't make it out.”
Clara covered her mouth, tears springing to her eyes. An innocent man was dead just to protect Julian’s secret.
“Who was her father?” Clara asked.
“His name was Thomas Miller. He used to be the head IT specialist at Sterling Global—he worked directly for our late mother before she was committed.” Mark handed Clara a burned piece of paper retrieved from the scene. “This was found in a fireproof safe in the basement. Thomas kept offline backups.”
Clara took the charred paper. It was a fragment of a medical ledger, stamped with the seal of St. Jude’s Private Asylum—the very facility where her mother had spent her final years.
On the ledger, next to her mother’s name, was a monthly payment signature from a company called Vance Enterprises.
Julian had been paying her mother’s doctors long before he even met Clara.
“He didn’t just target me, Mark,” Clara realized, her heart pounding. “He targeted our whole family. He isolated Mom, had her declared insane, stole her shares, and then forged a romantic connection with me to finish the job.”
Suddenly, the phone on the table buzzed. It was an unlisted, encrypted number.
Clara answered it, placing it on speaker.
“I hope you enjoyed your grand dramatic exit, Clara,” Julian’s slick voice echoed through the speaker. He didn’t sound panicked anymore; he sounded predatory.
“You’re a murderer, Julian,” Clara said coldly. “Thomas Miller died in that fire.”
Julian chuckled softly on the other end. “Accidents happen in poor neighborhoods, Clara. But let’s talk about you. You think you’re safe in that penthouse? Check your bank accounts.”
Mark quickly typed on his laptop. A second later, he gasped. “Clara… our corporate accounts are frozen. The board just held an emergency meeting without us. They used the power-of-attorney clause from our prenuptial agreement to vote you out as CEO!”
“How?” Clara demanded into the phone. “I never signed a power of attorney!”
“You did, darling,” Julian sneered. “Page forty-two of the wedding settlement documents you signed last night while sipping champagne with me. You were so blinded by love, you didn’t even read the fine print. As of ten minutes ago, Vance Enterprises owns the controlling stake in Sterling Global. You have nothing.”
“I still have the camera,” Clara retorted, her voice icy. “I have your voice on tape.”
“A damaged memory card from an unregistered camera delivered by a traumatized child?” Julian laughed. “My lawyers will have that thrown out of court in five minutes as unverified, tampered evidence. Enjoy your last night of luxury, Clara. Tomorrow morning, the police will arrive with a court order to commit you to St. Jude’s—for your own protection, of course.”
The line went dead.
Clara looked at Mark, her eyes burning with determination. “He thinks he played me.”
“Clara, he took the company, he froze our money, and he has the board in his pocket!” Mark said frantically. “What do we do?”
Clara walked over to the broken camera sitting on the table. She picked up a small metal pin and popped open the hidden compartment near the battery lens—a spot Julian’s men hadn’t checked.
She pulled out a second, ultra-tiny micro-SD card.
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“Thomas Miller was a top-tier IT specialist,” Clara said with a fierce smile. “He knew a broken camera wouldn't survive a trial. The audio on the main drive was just a distraction to make Julian confess on the phone line.”
She looked at her brother. “And I just recorded our entire phone conversation.”
