Elara's POV
"Say that again."
I'm staring at the phone in Damien's hand, at Trevor's name on the screen, my entire reality crumbling around me.
"I said, hello big brother," Trevor repeats, his voice dripping with sick amusement. "Oh wait—I'm talking to Damien. But I suppose I should say hello to my big sister too. Hello, Elara. Did you enjoy our engagement? Because I certainly did, knowing what I knew."
I grab the phone from Damien. "You KNEW? You knew we were related and you still—we were going to get MARRIED!"
"Technically, we're only half-siblings. Different mothers. It's not that weird in some cultures."
"It's INCEST!"
Trevor laughs—that cold, cruel laugh I used to think was charming. "Relax. I never planned to actually marry you. The engagement was just part of the game. Keep you close, control the Sinclair assets, make sure you never figured out the truth about dear old Dad."
"You're sick," Damien says, taking the phone back. "You knew Richard was your father and you let him destroy people? You helped him?"
"Helped him? I learned from the best." Trevor's voice turns sharp. "Richard Sinclair taught me everything about manipulation, blackmail, and how to destroy your enemies without getting your hands dirty. The only mistake he made was thinking he could control me. Thinking I'd always be his grateful illegitimate son, happy with whatever scraps he threw my way."
"So you turned on him," I realize. "You were the one who leaked Damien's emails. You were the one who made sure Richard came to that apartment."
"Gold star for the pregnant lady! Yes, I orchestrated the whole thing. I needed Richard dead, but I couldn't kill him myself—too obvious. So I let Damien do it for me. Two birds, one bullet." He pauses. "Although I have to admit, I didn't expect him to actually pull the trigger. I thought he'd hesitate, and Richard would kill you both. That would have been cleaner."
"You wanted me dead," I whisper.
"I wanted EVERYONE dead. You, Damien, Richard, the whole corrupt mess. Because here's what you don't know: when Richard dies, his entire estate goes to his children. All of us. That means I inherit half of Sinclair Hotels. And since you'll be convicted of corporate espionage—oh yes, those charges are still coming—your shares will be frozen. Which means I'll have controlling interest."
"Over my dead body," Damien snarls.
"That can be arranged." Trevor's voice goes cold. "I have something you both need to see. Check your email. The video I'm sending will change everything."
He hangs up.
Damien pulls up his email on his phone. There's a new message from an unknown sender. One video attachment.
He clicks play.
The video shows a hospital room. The timestamp says it's from seventeen years ago. A woman is in the bed—beautiful, blonde, connected to machines.
"That's my mother," Damien breathes. "That's Katherine."
The camera angle suggests it's hidden—maybe in a plant or a medical device. The video has no sound, but we watch as a nurse enters the room. She checks the IV, then pulls out a syringe from her pocket. She injects something into the IV line.
Katherine's body starts seizing. Alarms blare. Doctors rush in.
The timestamp shows they're too late. Katherine Cross is pronounced dead.
The nurse slips out during the chaos. As she turns toward the camera, her face is visible.
It's Trevor's mother. The woman who's now married to Trevor's father, the head of Ashford Hotels.
"No," Damien whispers. "No, no, no."
Another video starts automatically. Same hidden camera style. Different room.
This time it's my mother. Younger, beautiful, lying in a hospital bed. She looks weak but alive.
The same nurse enters. Same syringe. Same injection into the IV.
My mother dies the same way.
"She killed them both," I say, my voice breaking. "Trevor's mother murdered our mothers."
The phone rings again. Trevor.
"Did you enjoy the show?" he asks. "I found those videos in my father's safe. He kept them as insurance—leverage over my mother in case she ever tried to leave him. Isn't that romantic? A husband keeping evidence of his wife's double murder?"
"Why are you showing us this?" Damien demands.
"Because I want you to understand something: everyone in our families is a monster. Your father was weak and let himself be destroyed. Elara's father was a greedy killer. My father is a manipulative crime lord. My mother is a murderer. We're all poisoned by the same toxic blood." He pauses. "Except for one person. One innocent in all of this."
"Who?" I ask, though I already know.
"Your baby. That innocent little life growing inside you, carrying the DNA of two destroyed families. The Cross family. The Sinclair family. The Ashford family. All of our sins, combined in one perfect little victim."
Ice floods my veins. "Trevor, don't you dare—"
"I'm not going to hurt your baby, sister dear. I'm going to take it. Raise it. Teach it everything our parents taught us about power and revenge. And when that child grows up, it'll destroy everything you both love. Your perfect revenge story? It ends with your own child becoming your worst enemy."
"You're insane," Damien says.
"I'm practical. The baby is the key to controlling both empires. Cross International. Sinclair Hotels. Ashford Enterprises. Once I have custody—and I will get custody, once you're both in prison—I'll raise the future of American hospitality." He laughs. "Poetic, isn't it?"
"We'll never let you near our child," I snarl.
"You won't have a choice. I have evidence that Damien premeditated Richard's murder. I have proof that you, Elara, were complicit. I have video of Katherine and your mother being murdered. I have documentation of every crime our families committed. And I'll trade it all—every piece of evidence—for one thing."
"What?" Damien asks.
"Full custody of your baby. The moment it's born, you sign over all parental rights to me. In exchange, I destroy the evidence. You go free. You keep your companies. You get to live your lives." He pauses. "But your child becomes mine."
"Never," I say. "I'll die first."
"That can be arranged too. But think about it: you give me the baby, and everyone wins. You give me the baby, or everyone loses. You have twenty-four hours to decide."
The line goes dead.
I stare at Damien. He stares back at me. We're both thinking the same impossible thought.
Trevor has us trapped. He has evidence that could send us both to prison for life. Evidence that could destroy what's left of our families. And he's willing to trade it all for our unborn child.
"We can't give him our baby," I whisper.
"We won't."
"But if we don't, we go to prison. Our baby is born in prison. Taken away anyway."
"Then we run." Damien's face is hard. Determined. "We disappear. Change our names. Leave the country. Raise our child somewhere Trevor can never find us."
"Run forever? Never see our families again? Never have lives?"
"It's better than the alternative."
Grandmother speaks for the first time since Trevor's call. "There's another option."
We turn to her.
"You fight," she says simply. "You use everything Trevor gave you against him. He thinks he has leverage, but he made one critical mistake."
"What mistake?" Damien asks.
"He sent you evidence of his mother committing murder. Which means he's implicating his own family in capital crimes. The Ashford empire survives on reputation and connections. Once that video goes public, the Ashfords are finished. Their hotels will be seized. Their assets frozen. Their family name destroyed." She leans forward. "Trevor is so focused on revenge that he's willing to burn his own house down. Use that. Make him lose everything before he can take your child."
"But the evidence against us—" I start.
"Is circumstantial. Damien killed Richard in self-defense. That's not murder. You were never complicit in corporate espionage. That's Trevor's fabrication. The only real crimes here were committed by the older generation. You two are victims who've been fighting back." She smiles grimly. "Sometimes the best defense is a scorched-earth offense."
Damien looks at me. "It's risky. If we go public with this, we're exposing everything. Every family secret. Every crime. It'll destroy what's left of the Sinclair name. The Cross name. The Ashford name. Everyone goes down."
"Good," I say. My hand goes to my stomach protectively. "Let it all burn. I don't care about legacies or empires or family names. I care about protecting my baby. And if that means destroying everyone who threatens us, then that's what we do."
He kisses me—hard and fierce. "That's my wife."
"So we're doing this?" I ask. "We're going to war?"
"We're already at war. Now we finish it."
Grandmother hands Damien a flash drive. "Everything is on here. Katherine's journal. The murder videos. Bank records showing the money trail between Richard and the Ashfords. Documentation of every crime committed by all three families over the past twenty years. Release it all at once, and you'll create such a legal nightmare that Trevor won't have time to come after your baby. He'll be too busy fighting for his own freedom."
Damien takes the drive. "You kept all of this? For seventeen years?"
"I told you—I was a coward who stayed silent. But I documented everything, hoping someday I'd find the courage to do the right thing." She looks at both of us. "You're that courage now. Finish what Katherine and Elara's mother started. Burn it all down and build something better from the ashes."
My phone buzzes. A text from an unknown number: The twenty-four hour countdown starts now. Midnight tomorrow, I need your answer. Or I go public with everything I have. - Trevor
"He's serious," I say. "He'll really do it."
"So will we." Damien holds up the flash drive. "Marcus, I need you to contact every major news outlet. Set up a press conference for tonight. We're going public with everything."
"Everything?" Marcus asks. "You understand what that means? Your mother's murder. Richard's crimes. The Ashford connection. Your marriage. The pregnancy. All of it becomes public knowledge."
"All of it," Damien confirms. "No more secrets. No more lies. We tell the whole truth and let the world decide who the real monsters are."
I take his hand. "Together?"
"Always together."
We spend the next six hours preparing. Marcus gets the press conference set up. Lawyers review the evidence. We write statements. We prepare for our lives to explode in the most public way possible.
At 6 PM, we stand in front of fifty cameras and a hundred reporters. The flash photography is blinding.
Damien steps up to the microphone. "Thank you all for coming. My name is Damien Cross. This is my wife, Elara Cross. We're here today to expose a conspiracy of murder, fraud, and corruption that spans three prominent hotel families and twenty years."
He starts the video. Katherine's murder plays on the big screens behind us. Then my mother's murder. The room erupts in gasps and shouted questions.
"These women were killed because they discovered that Ashford Hotels has been laundering money for criminal organizations for decades," Damien continues. "My father was framed and destroyed when he accidentally stumbled onto evidence of these crimes. Elara's mother and my mother worked together to expose the truth. They were murdered for it. And the killings were covered up by corrupt lawyers, paid off police, and a system designed to protect the wealthy and powerful."
I step up beside him. "My father, Richard Sinclair, was one of those corrupt lawyers. He helped destroy the Cross family. He helped cover up two murders. And recently, he attempted to murder me and my unborn child. My husband killed him in self-defense, protecting our family."
The reporters are screaming questions now, but we keep going.
"Trevor Ashford—my ex-fiancé and half-brother—" I pause, letting that bomb drop, "has been blackmailing us with this evidence, demanding we give him custody of our baby in exchange for his silence. But we're done with silence. We're done with letting powerful families commit crimes without consequences. So we're releasing everything. Every document. Every video. Every piece of evidence we have. And we're calling for a full federal investigation into the Ashford, Sinclair, and Cross family business practices over the past twenty years."
Damien holds up the flash drive. "This contains everything. We're uploading it to the public domain as we speak. No more secrets. No more cover-ups. Just truth."
We step back from the microphones. The reporters are rioting—shouting, pushing, trying to get closer.
Security escorts us out through a back entrance. In the car, my hands won't stop shaking.
"We did it," I whisper. "We actually did it."
"We did," Damien agrees. "Now we wait for the fallout."
The fallout comes fast.
By midnight, the videos have gone viral. #JusticeForKatherine and #SinclairMurders are trending worldwide. The FBI announces an investigation. The NYPD reopens both murder cases. Ashford Hotels' stock crashes. Protesters gather outside Trevor's apartment.
My phone rings at 12:01 AM. Trevor.
"You'll regret this," he hisses. "You just destroyed everything. Everything!"
"Good," I say. "That was the point."
"You think you've won? You've declared war on someone who has nothing left to lose. And people with nothing to lose are dangerous, Elara. Very dangerous."
"Then we'll be dangerous right back."
"We'll see about that." His voice drops to a whisper. "Sweet dreams, sister. And give my regards to your baby. I'll be seeing you both very soon."
He hangs up.
Damien sees my face. "What did he say?"
"He's coming for us. He's not giving up."
"Then neither are we." He pulls me close. "Whatever happens next, we face it together. You, me, and this baby. That's our family now. That's what we protect."
I lay my head on his chest, listening to his heartbeat, feeling our baby move inside me.
We've exposed decades of crimes. Made powerful enemies. Painted targets on our backs.
But we're still standing.
Still fighting.
Still together.
Three days later, I'm in the kitchen making tea when I feel the first contraction.
"Damien!" I call out. "The baby—it's coming!"
He rushes in, face pale. "Now? You're only seven months!"
"The baby doesn't care about timelines!"
We rush to the hospital. The doctors confirm: I'm in premature labor. The stress, the trauma, everything has triggered early delivery.
They prep me for emergency surgery. Damien holds my hand, terrified.
"Our baby's going to be okay," I tell him, trying to convince myself as much as him.
"Of course they are. They're a fighter. Just like their mother."
They wheel me into surgery. Damien can't come—it's too high-risk.
The last thing I see before they put me under is his face, full of love and fear.
I wake up in a recovery room. Everything is blurry. Damien is beside me, tears streaming down his face.
"The baby?" I croak.
"She's perfect. Small, but perfect. Five pounds, two ounces. The doctors say she'll need to stay in the NICU for a few weeks, but she's breathing on her own. She's strong." He kisses my hand. "Just like her mother."
"A girl," I whisper. "We have a daughter."
"We have a daughter."
A nurse brings her in—tiny, wrapped in blankets, hooked up to monitors but alive and beautiful.
I hold her for the first time, and everything else fades away. The war. The secrets. The danger. None of it matters.
Only her.
"Hope," I say. "Her name is Hope."
Damien touches her tiny hand. "Hope Cross. Perfect."
We sit like that for hours, just the three of us, in our own protected bubble.
Then my phone buzzes.
A text from unknown number: Congratulations on the baby! She's beautiful. I should know—I'm watching you right now. Room 347, maternity ward, Mercy General. Did you really think I wouldn't find you? Sleep tight, big sister. We'll be seeing each other very soon. - T
I look up at the window. The blinds are open.
Someone is standing across the street on a rooftop. Too far to see clearly.
But I know it's Trevor.
Watching.
Waiting.
Planning his next move.
And our baby—our precious Hope—is right in his crosshairs.