Chapter 6 - Secrets in the Dark
As Arthur Montgomery was led out of the courthouse by his panicked attorneys to face a wall of flashing cameras, Damon and Sylvie walked out through a private exit.
Sylvie leaned against Damon, letting out a long breath she felt like she had been holding for seven months. "It's over," she whispered. "He can't touch them now."
"Not yet," Damon said gently, helping her into the back of a waiting SUV. "Arthur is a trapped animal now. When men like him lose their power, they become unpredictable."
Damon’s instinct proved right sooner than he expected.
That night, back at the estate, as the rain began to fall once again over New York, the security system at the perimeter gate gave a low electronic warning.
Damon walked into the security control room. His head of security, Ray, was pointing at a camera monitor. A dark sedan was parked outside the main gate, but it wasn't the police or reporters.
A single figure stepped out of the car under an umbrella. It was Julian Sterling.
"He's alone," Ray said. "Should I have the guards remove him?"
Damon stared at the screen. Julian looked broken, his career ruined by the morning's SEC raid. "No. Let him up to the front courtyard. I'll speak to him."
"Damon, it could be a setup," Sylvie said, coming into the hallway with Clara held tightly against her chest.
"I'll have Ray with me," Damon assured her, kissing her forehead. "Stay inside with the children."
Damon stepped out onto the wide stone porch. The cool rain misted against his face as Julian walked up the front steps, soaked to the bone, holding a thick leather binder under his arm.
"You won, Damon," Julian said, his voice ragged. "You destroyed Marcus, you destroyed Arthur, and you ruined my firm."
"You ruined yourself when you helped Arthur try to steal my children, Julian," Damon replied flatly.
"You think this was about children?!" Julian let out a bitter, wild laugh. "You still don't get it, do you? You think Arthur wanted those babies just to spite you?!"
Damon’s eyes narrowed. "What are you talking about?"
Julian opened the leather binder, holding up a yellowed document encased in plastic. "Arthur didn't care about your company's stock, Damon. He cared about what your father hid thirty years ago."
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Damon froze. His father had died penniless when Damon was twenty, leaving behind nothing but a small, struggling research lab in Brooklyn.
"Your father didn't die of a heart attack, Damon," Julian whispered, a dangerous glint in his eye. "Arthur Montgomery bought your father's original patents thirty years ago for a pittance because your father was starving. And inside those original notes was the base formula for the very pediatric cancer treatment you spent the last decade developing. Arthur realized that if you proved the drug worked, the patent rights would legally revert to your father's estate—to you and your children. You were sitting on a forty-billion-dollar medical breakthrough that belonged to your family all along."
