Chapter 25 Journalist Calls
The call came through a number Lila didn’t recognize.
She was sitting at the small desk in the bedroom, laptop open but untouched, staring at the legal language Cassia had left behind like it might rearrange itself into mercy if she waited long enough. Elliot was with Marcus—“a walk,” Marcus had said, careful not to frame it as permission or escape. Just air. Just movement.
Her phone vibrated once. Then again.
She ignored it.
By the third vibration, unease crawled up her spine. Unknown numbers were no longer neutral in this house. They were either monitored—or deliberately slipping through.
She answered without speaking.
“Ms. Hart,” a man’s voice said quietly. Familiar in cadence, sharper than memory. “If you hang up, I’ll assume you’re not ready to know why you disappeared.”
Her breath caught.
Julian Cross.
She closed her eyes. “How did you get this number?”
“That question cuts both ways,” he replied. “I’ve been trying to reach you for weeks. Someone’s been rerouting your calls.”
She stood slowly, moving toward the window. “You shouldn’t be calling me.”
“I shouldn’t,” he agreed. “But you shouldn’t be where you are either.”
Her pulse thudded in her ears. “You don’t know anything about where I am.”
“I know you’re in Adrian Blackmoor’s penthouse,” Julian said. “I know Cassia Moore filed emergency motions yesterday. I know your movement is restricted under the guise of child protection.”
Lila’s grip tightened around the phone. “If you know all that, then you know this conversation isn’t safe.”
“No conversation with me ever is,” he said. “That’s kind of my brand.”
She almost laughed. Almost.
“What do you want?” she asked.
“To compare notes,” Julian said. “Because the version of your life you think you lived doesn’t match the paper trail I’ve been following for five years.”
Her chest tightened. “Five years.”
“Yes,” he said. “Since you vanished.”
“I didn’t vanish,” she snapped. “I left.”
Julian paused. “That’s what you were supposed to believe.”
Her stomach dropped.
“You tracked Adrian,” she said slowly. “Not me.”
“I tracked the empire,” Julian replied. “You were a footnote. Until you weren’t.”
She swallowed. “Say what you’re implying.”
“There was a concerted effort,” Julian said, his voice lowering, “to remove you from visibility. Not erase you—too messy. Just… blur you. Dead records. Interrupted references. No fixed address long enough to leave a trail.”
Lila’s knees weakened. She sat on the edge of the bed.
“Why?” she whispered.
“That’s the part I’m still piecing together,” he said. “But here’s what I do know: Adrian didn’t order it.”
Her heart stuttered.
“Then who did?”
Julian exhaled. “Someone who benefits from Adrian staying unencumbered. Someone who understands legacy.”
Images flickered through her mind—elegant smiles, cold eyes, boardrooms she’d never entered.
“His family,” she said.
“Yes,” Julian replied. “And not just one of them.”
Silence stretched between them.
“You’re telling me this now,” Lila said carefully, “because you want something.”
“Of course I do,” Julian said. “I want the truth. And you’re standing at the center of it whether you like it or not.”
“I won’t use my son as leverage,” she said sharply.
“I wouldn’t ask you to,” Julian replied. “But others already are.”
Her fingers trembled. “Then why help me?”
Julian hesitated. Just long enough.
“Because I was there,” he said. “Five years ago. Not physically—but close enough to smell it.”
Her breath caught. “You knew.”
“I suspected,” he said. “I pushed. Asked questions. Someone made it very clear I was digging in the wrong direction.”
A chill slid down her spine. “How?”
“My editor lost funding,” Julian said. “My sources dried up overnight. I was warned—subtly—that some stories collapse people.”
“And you stopped.”
“For a while,” he admitted. “Then I started again. Quieter. Smarter.”
“And now?”
“And now there’s a child,” he said. “And children make monsters sloppy.”
Footsteps echoed faintly in the hallway.
Lila’s heart slammed against her ribs. “I can’t talk long.”
“I know,” Julian said. “So listen carefully.”
She closed her eyes.
“There are files,” he said. “Medical wings tied to shell companies. Nonprofits that move money and people. Blackmoor assets that don’t exist on paper but do in practice.”
“What does that have to do with me?” she asked.
“Your architecture consultancy,” Julian said. “The projects you worked on after you left. Do you remember who funded them?”
Her mind reeled backward—blueprints, contracts, faceless intermediaries.
“Oh my God,” she whispered.
“You were being tracked,” Julian said. “Not watched—tested. To see if you could be controlled. If you’d break.”
Her throat burned. “And Elliot?”
Julian’s voice softened. “Elliot wasn’t part of the original plan.”
That was worse.
“So what now?” she asked.
“Now you decide if you want to stay blind,” he said, “or if you want to burn the curtains down.”
A knock sounded at the door.
Lila jumped.
“Ms. Hart?” a voice called—one of the guards.
“I have to go,” she said urgently.
“Wait,” Julian said. “There’s one more thing.”
Her chest tightened. “What?”
“You didn’t disappear on your own,” he said. “But you didn’t survive by accident either.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means someone intervened,” Julian said. “Quietly. Not Adrian. Not me.”
The door handle turned.
“Who?” she whispered.
Julian’s voice dropped to a murmur. “That’s what I’m trying to find out.”
The line went dead.
Lila stared at the phone long after the call ended.
When the door opened, Marcus stood there—not a guard.
“You alright?” he asked quietly.
She nodded, forcing composure into place. “Yes.”
He studied her for a moment. “Your vitals don’t agree.”
She met his gaze, something unspoken passing between them. “Neither does my life.”
Marcus didn’t press. He stepped aside. “Elliot’s back. He wanted you.”
She followed him down the hall, her mind racing, the world rearranging itself around a truth she wasn’t sure she wanted.
Julian wasn’t her ally.
Adrian wasn’t her savior.
And somewhere in the machinery of power that had shaped her disappearance—
Someone had decided she was worth keeping alive.
Which meant she was never meant to be free.