Chapter 3 - The Coldest Lie
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The silence in the ballroom was suffocating.
Dozens of high-society guests on the far side of the room were turning their heads toward us.
Julian straightened his posture, trying desperately to regain his aristocratic superiority.
“Your father ordered me to handle that situation, Grant,” Julian said coldly.
“Charles didn't want a low-class scandal dragging down the Holloway name.”
Grant stepped out from behind the table, closing the distance between them until he was inches from Julian’s face.
“My father died seven years ago,” Grant said, his voice vibrating with venom.
“Charles hasn't given an order in almost a decade.”
“So who signed the checks last year, Julian?”
“Who signed the checks six months ago?”
Julian’s mouth opened, but no sound came out.
Mia lifted her chin, her dark eyes flashing with painful memories.
“When I was six years old, I got sick,” Mia said, her voice carrying across the silent tables.
“I had acute lymphoblastic leukemia.”
Grant flinched as if he had been struck across the face.
“Leukemia?” Grant whispered, looking at his newfound half-sister with heartbreak.
Mia nodded, her hands trembling as she held her mother’s notes.
“The chemotherapy cost thousands of dollars that my mother didn't have.”
“She was working two shifts at a diner and scrubbing floors at night.”
“She called your family office, begging for an extra five thousand dollars to pay for my hospital treatments.”
“She wasn't asking for a fortune.”
“She was asking for her child’s life.”
Grant slowly turned his head back toward Julian.
“Tell me you didn't,” Grant whispered, his voice dangerously fragile.
Julian scoffed, crossing his arms over his chest.
“She signed an ironclad non-disclosure agreement eighteen years ago, Grant.”
“If you open the door to extortion once, these people never stop bleeding you dry.”
“I was protecting your inheritance.”
“I was protecting the corporation that pays for your lifestyle.”
Mia wiped a hot tear from her cheek.
“You told my mother that if she ever called again, you would send private investigators to declare her an unfit mother.”
“You told her that my illness was God’s punishment for getting between two powerful families.”
Celeste gasped softly, covering her mouth with her trembling fingers.
Grant’s fists clenched so tightly that his knuckles turned completely white.
The intricate ink running down his forearms seemed to pulse with his racing heartbeat.
“You let a six-year-old girl fight cancer in a county hospital while sitting on fifty million dollars of our family fund?” Grant asked.
“She survived, didn't she?” Julian snapped, his arrogance finally cracking into ugly cruelty.
“Look at her, Grant!”
“She’s standing right here, trying to crash your wedding and extort another payout!”
“She is a waitress who shares some dirty genetic mistake from your senile old man!”
Grant’s left hand shot out like lightning.
He seized Julian by the lapels of his tuxedo and shoved him backward against the mirrored pillar.
The glass rattled violently behind Julian’s head.
Several women in the ballroom screamed in shock.
“Say another word about my sister,” Grant growled, his face inches from Julian’s nose, “and you won't walk out of this building.”
Julian was trembling now, all his polished bravado evaporating into pure terror.
“Grant, please,” Julian choked out, his hands clawing at Grant’s iron grip.
“You don't know the whole story.”
“You don't know what Charles really did.”
Grant did not let go.
May you like
Instead, he leaned in closer.
“Then you better start talking right now, Julian, before I let the police do the asking.”
