Chapter 39
Elise's POV
Julian's office occupied a corner of an old commercial building on the east side of the city. The hallway carpet was a deep crimson, worn thin in places where countless feet had trodden over the years, and the walls displayed oil paintings of indeterminate age. The air carried the distinct smell of aged paper, that particular mustiness that comes from decades of documents filed and forgotten.
When I pushed open the door, he was standing by the window. At the sound of the door, he turned—a man in his early sixties, his hair a distinguished silver-white, gold-rimmed glasses perched on his nose, and a pale gray shirt that had been ironed to crisp perfection. He looked thinner than I remembered from two years ago, his cheekbones more pronounced, as though the intervening time had slowly whittled away at him.
"Elise." He spoke my name, moving toward me with measured steps that betrayed a certain stiffness—I noticed how his hand reached out to steady himself against the desk's edge before he fully straightened. He extended his hand as if to touch my shoulder, then seemed to think better of it, and instead clasped my hand in his. His palms were dry and warm, the kind of touch that belonged to someone who had lived long enough to understand the weight of gesture.
"It's been too long. You look more like your mother every time I see you. Especially the eyes."
I didn't respond to that.
"Julian, I'm here about the inheritance."
The change in his expression wasn't quite surprise—it was more like recognition, the look of someone who had been expecting this moment and perhaps had even been dreading it.
"You want it back?"
"Yes."
He removed his glasses, pulled a handkerchief from his pocket to clean the lenses with careful, practiced movements before settling them back on his nose.
"In terms of documentation, everything is in order," he said, his voice taking on the measured tone of a professional delivering difficult news. "Your parents were meticulous in their planning—the will, the power of attorney, the asset inventory, the beneficiary designations—it's all here. You could sign the papers and initiate the inheritance process."
"But?"
I heard the unspoken qualification hanging in the air between us.
Julian fell silent for several seconds, his fingers drumming twice against the desktop—a habit from when he was thinking through how to deliver unwelcome information.
"But your aunt and uncle have, over these years, under the guise of 'asset management,' transferred a significant portion of the estate out of the trust accounts."
My heart dropped, but I kept my face carefully neutral.
"How much?"
"I'm still working through the exact figures. Preliminary estimates suggest..." He paused, and I could see the reluctance in his eyes. "At least two-thirds of the total value."
Two-thirds.
Everything my parents had left me. Everything they had worked for their entire lives—their savings, the properties, the investment returns—more than two-thirds of it taken by two people I should have been able to trust.
"How did they manage it?" My voice came out steady, almost eerily calm.
"Nominally through 'asset management' and 'trust operations.'" Julian's sigh was heavy with resignation. "Your uncle used estate funds to make several 'investments'—ventures with suspiciously low returns and extremely opaque fund flows."
He looked at me then, and I saw genuine regret in his eyes.
"Your parents entrusted you to them because they wanted you to grow up in a stable environment, without the pressure of managing significant wealth at such a young age. They worried that having access to that much money too early would make you a target."
He paused.
"They never imagined that the danger wouldn't come from outside. That it was already inside the house."
The office fell into silence. Outside the window, I could hear the muted sounds of traffic. Sunlight filtered through the gaps in the venetian blinds, casting parallel bars of light across Julian's desk.
---
So if I wanted to recover the full inheritance—
"I need to find where the money went and get documentation of the transactions," I said.
Julian nodded slowly.
"If you can locate the funds and establish the paper trail, we can pursue legal remedies to recover them. If you can't..." He let the sentence hang. "You'll only be able to inherit what remains."
A small portion.
I looked down at the water glass in my hands, watching the surface remain perfectly still, reflecting back an image of my own face.
---
Liam's POV
Isabella's residence was in one of the luxury apartment complexes on the north side of the city.
It wasn't like the Sterling family's old-money estate, but something more modern, more deliberately minimal—all glass curtain walls and clean architectural lines. The entire building housed only twelve floors, with one residence per floor. She lived on the ninth floor.
I parked in the underground garage, and during the elevator ride up I found myself still trying to formulate exactly how I was going to approach this conversation.
My grandfather's directive kept cycling through my mind.
"You need to see Isabella. Explain the situation clearly. The alliance between our families cannot be jeopardized by your personal conduct."
"Explain the situation clearly"—four words that sounded so simple, but I understood the true weight they carried.
Last night's party, regardless of how much money I had poured into buying off the actors, staging the scenes, scripting every interaction—as long as there was one photograph, one video clip, or even just one witness whose silence I hadn't successfully purchased—it would transform into a weapon.
A weapon that could cut both Isabella and me.
And the person who held that weapon was standing right now behind the door I was about to knock on.
---
The doorbell chimed twice before the door opened.
Isabella stood in the entrance, wrapped in an ivory silk robe, her hair loosely pinned up, her face showing that state of minimal makeup that suggested she hadn't been awake very long. When she saw me, one eyebrow arched slightly—not surprise exactly, but more like an expression that seemed to say "so you actually came."
"Liam." The way she said my name carried a husky quality from sleep, and somehow that ordinary greeting took on undertones that felt deliberately ambiguous. "Rather early, isn't it?"
"My grandfather sent me."
I delivered the statement directly. Not because I didn't understand diplomatic courtesy—I genuinely didn't have the energy today to engage in elaborate social performance.
Isabella leaned against the doorframe, her gaze traveling slowly across my face, as though she were evaluating something.
Then she stepped aside.
"Come in, then."
---
Her apartment surprised me.
I had imagined walking into a space cluttered with designer handbags, surfaces crowded with expensive cosmetics, closets bursting with evening gowns—the typical aesthetic of a wealthy heiress. But the reality was entirely different.
Clean. Minimal. Almost austere.