Chapter 6

What Julian Found

Sunlight cuts through the blinds when I wake, and for one disoriented moment I forget where I am, forget everything that happened, until the dull ache low in my body reminds me all at once.

My phone is still in my hand, screen dark now, but I remember the message before I even unlock it.

Julian:Found something on Isabella. You need to see this the moment you wake up. It changes everything.

I call him before I've even sat up fully, wincing as the movement pulls at my stitches.

"You're awake." His voice is tight, rushed, none of the careful gentleness from yesterday. "Good. I'm coming to you, don't go anywhere."

"Julian, what did you find?"

"Ten minutes. I'll explain everything in person." The line clicks dead before I can argue.

My father is asleep in the chair beside my bed, his coat draped over his shoulders like a blanket, and I don't have the heart to wake him yet. I ease myself upright instead, reaching for the water on the nightstand, my mind spinning through every possibility of what Julian could have uncovered.

He arrives in exactly nine minutes, a folder tucked under one arm, his tie already loosened like he's been up all night. He doesn't sit. He just stands at the foot of my bed, and the look on his face makes my stomach drop before he says a single word.

"The man from the gala." Julian sets the folder down and flips it open. "His name is Marcus Delray. Small time actor, mostly commercial work, some background acting on soap operas out of the city."

"An actor." The word tastes bitter in my mouth. "So he was hired."

"Paid, actually, and generously." Julian pulls out a printed bank statement, sliding it toward me. "Fifty thousand dollars, wired three days before the gala, from an offshore account registered to a shell company called Voss Holdings."

My father stirs in the chair, blinking awake, and sits up sharply the moment he registers the tension in the room.

"Isabella." I say her name like a curse. "I knew it."

"There's more." Julian's jaw tightens as he pulls out a second document, this one a printed screenshot of text messages, timestamps blurred but legible. "My contact managed to get into Delray's phone records before he deleted everything and disappeared. He's been messaging back and forth with someone using the initials I.V. for the past two months."

He turns the paper toward me, and I read the exchange twice before the full weight of it settles into my chest.

I.V.: Remember, the story is you two dated four years ago, secretly, right before her wedding. She got pregnant, panicked, married Frost to hide it. That's Lila's real father.

Delray:And the new baby?

I.V.: Say it's yours too. Say she came crawling back to you recently, desperate, because Noah stopped touching her. Make it messy. Make it public.

Delray: This is going to destroy her.

I.V.: That's the point.

My hands are shaking by the time I set the paper down. "She planned this for two months. Before I even knew I was pregnant."

"She's been planning it since before she and Ivy ever showed up at your penthouse." Julian's voice is grim. "This wasn't a woman reacting to circumstances, Amara. This was a campaign."

"And Lila." My voice cracks. "She used my daughter as a weapon. She tried to convince the entire world that Lila isn't even Noah's child."

My father's hand finds mine, gripping tight. "This is enough to destroy her credibility completely. If this gets into the right hands, into the press, into a courtroom, Isabella Voss will never recover from it."

"Then let's make sure it does." I look up at Julian, something steady settling into my chest for the first time since I woke up in this bed. "I want this out. Not leaked quietly, not buried in some legal filing nobody reads. I want it public, the same way she made her lies public."

Julian studies me for a long moment, something like approval flickering behind his exhaustion. "There's one more thing you should know before you decide how to move forward."

"What."

He hesitates, glancing briefly at my father before continuing. "The wire transfer to Delray, it wasn't sent from Isabella's personal accounts. Voss Holdings isn't hers. I traced the ownership structure back through two other shell companies before I found the name on the original incorporation documents."

My stomach tightens. "Whose name."

Julian pulls out one final page and sets it on top of the others, and the name printed there hits me harder than anything Isabella has done in the last two months combined.

Elena Frost.

The room goes silent except for the steady, unbothered beep of the monitor beside my bed.

"That's not possible." My voice comes out barely above a whisper. "Elena has been the only person in that family who's ever treated me like I mattered."

Julian's expression doesn't waver. "I triple checked it, Amara. Whoever set up the funding for this entire campaign, whoever's been financing Isabella's return this whole time, it traces straight back to Noah's own sister."