Chapter 14 - The Husband They Planned to Blame
The draft petition was detailed.
It claimed Damian and Elena’s marriage had become volatile.
It referenced real arguments.
A broken wineglass from a dinner two years earlier.
An angry voicemail Damian had left after Elena canceled a corporate event.
A witness who claimed Damian once shouted, “Maybe you should disappear if you hate this family so much.”
Damian remembered saying it.
The memory sickened him.
Elena did too.
“You said it in the kitchen.”
“I know.”
“You apologized.”
“Yes.”
“But Celeste heard.”
Damian looked at the documents.
Every ugly moment had been saved.
Cataloged.
Reframed.
If Adrian eventually needed Elena legally dead, he could redirect suspicion toward Damian.
“Why didn’t they do it?” Damian asked.
Shaw answered.
“Because Elena remained missing without enough evidence for homicide. Accusing you too early could trigger a deeper investigation.”
“So they waited.”
“Yes.”
“And built the file.”
The Newark drives contained audio.
Celeste secretly recording Damian after Elena vanished.
“Do you think she left because of you?”
“Yes.”
“Were you angry with her?”
“Yes.”
“Did you ever wish she would just go away?”
Damian’s own voice answered:
“Sometimes.”
Cut from context, it sounded terrible.
Lucas wandered into the room.
Damian closed the laptop.
“What are you doing?”
“Nothing.”
Lucas stared.
“That means bad stuff.”
Elena almost smiled.
Damian said, “Adult stuff.”
“About Mom?”
“Yes.”
“Celeste?”
“Yes.”
Lucas climbed onto the sofa.
“She always asked me questions.”
Damian looked at him.
“What questions?”
“If you yelled at Mom.”
Elena froze.
“What did you say?”
“I said sometimes.”
Damian looked down.
Lucas continued.
“She asked if you ever broke things.”
“What did you say?”
“You broke the garage remote when the door got stuck.”
Elena covered her mouth.
It would have sounded almost funny if the purpose had not been terrifying.
Celeste had interviewed a child to build allegations against his father.
Lucas added, “She asked if Mom was scared of you.”
Damian could barely breathe.
“What did you say?”
“I said Mom wasn’t scared of anybody.”
Elena reached for him.
“That’s my boy.”
The legal setback came the next morning.
A federal prosecutor informed Damian that the Baltimore bribery inquiry remained active.
Evidence suggested payments from his development fund had indeed gone to a city consultant who later influenced permitting.
Damian had not personally ordered the payment.
But emails showed his office pushed aggressively for “whatever support is required.”
Martin warned him.
“This may not be criminal for you, but it could be a serious governance failure.”
Damian sat in silence.
Elena said, “You told them to audit everything.”
“I know.”
“You meant it?”
“Yes.”
“Then don’t run when it finds something ugly.”
He nodded.
The board announced Damian would remain on leave.
Adrian remained jailed pending bail proceedings.
Margaret resigned.
Vale Oceanic appointed a special committee.
Damian’s control was slipping further.
Then the family court issued a temporary order.
Because of Damian’s admitted assault on Celeste and unresolved corporate investigation, an independent fiduciary—not Adrian—would temporarily oversee Lucas’s seventeen-percent voting trust.
Damian lost direct influence over the shares.
He felt humiliated.
Worse, newspapers framed the ruling as judicial concern about his parenting.
Lucas saw a headline on a tablet.
“Dad?”
Damian took it away.
“Don’t read that.”
“It says judge thinks you’re dangerous.”
Elena looked at Damian.
He could have lied.
Instead he said, “The judge thinks adults need to check whether I made safe choices.”
“Did you?”
Damian swallowed.
“Not always.”
Lucas thought about it.
“Are you dangerous to me?”
“No.”
“Promise?”
Damian knelt.
“I promise I will never hurt you.”
Lucas touched his cheek.
“Even when you’re mad?”
“Especially then.”
The boy hugged him.
That evening, investigators decrypted Victor Dane’s first drive.
A video appeared.
Dane speaking into a camera.
“If you’re watching this, somebody stopped paying me.”
Shaw leaned closer.
Dane continued.
“Adrian Vale thinks Harbor Meridian is his. It isn’t.”
Damian frowned.
Dane smiled at the camera.
“Vincent Vale created it.”
Damian’s blood ran cold.
May you like
His father had not merely hidden Northstar.
According to Dane, Vincent had created the very company Adrian used to steal Vale Oceanic.
