All Chapters of The Cross Family: Chapter 131 - Chapter 140

145 Chapters

The Second Leak

The second leak dropped at 9:03 p.m.This time, it wasn’t subtle.It wasn’t speculation wrapped in careful language or blurry images framed as questions.It was clear.Deliberate.Explosive.Casey was in the Cross estate gym when his phone buzzed violently against the bench beside him. He’d been pushing himself harder than usual lately—lifting until his arms trembled, running until his lungs burned. It was the only place the noise in his head quieted.The phone buzzed again.And again.He grabbed it, sweat cooling against his skin.Cameron’s name flashed across the screen.He answered immediately. “What?”Cameron didn’t sound like himself. His usual humor was gone. “You need to see what just posted.”Casey’s stomach sank. “Where?”“Everywhere.”Casey hung up and opened his browser.The headline was already trending.CROSS HEIR IN BED WITH LAW ENFORCEMENT? Shocking Photos Raise QuestionsHis pulse spiked.He clicked.The photos loaded in a series.The first was unmistakable.The street

The Breaking Point

The first forty-eight hours of Rowan’s suspension felt like a slow suffocation.No badge at her hip.No morning roll call.No radio crackling in her ear.Just silence.Silence and headlines.She stayed inside longer than she ever had in her adult life. Not because she was ashamed—but because stepping outside meant cameras might be waiting. It meant neighbors looking twice. It meant whispers.Rowan Vale had built her identity on competence. On being the officer who didn’t flinch, didn’t bend, didn’t need protecting.Now she was trending.Casey didn’t call.He respected her request.But that didn’t stop him from pacing the marble floors of the Cross estate like a caged animal.The second leak had detonated something in him.Not just anger.Fear.He’d watched Alexander weather corporate attacks. Watched Adrian dismantle courtroom threats. Watched Cameron endure media storms with practiced indifference.But this felt different.This felt personal.Because this time, someone he cared about

The Setup

Adrian Cross did not believe in coincidence.Not in business.Not in law.And certainly not when the Cross name was under attack.The second leak had been too clean. Too timely. Too strategically cruel.By the third morning after Rowan’s suspension, Adrian was sitting in the Cross legal office surrounded by screens, spreadsheets, and a quiet storm of data.He hadn’t slept much.He didn’t need to.Pattern recognition was sharper when fueled by irritation.Alexander stood near the window, hands clasped behind his back. Cameron paced in slow loops. Casey sat in the far chair, jaw set, saying nothing.Adrian clicked through metadata from the original party photos.“These weren’t pulled randomly,” he said.Casey looked up. “What do you mean?”“The oldest images resurfaced from archived accounts,” Adrian continued. “Accounts that were inactive for years. Some private. Some deleted.”Cameron frowned. “So someone hacked them?”“Not necessarily hacked,” Adrian replied calmly. “Accessed.”Alexa

The Trap Revealed

By the time the forensic report came in, Casey had stopped pretending this was about bad luck.He stood in Adrian’s office at Cross headquarters, staring at the paused security footage projected across the wall. The image was grainy, pulled from the apartment building’s hallway camera the night of the raid. The time stamp glowed in white in the bottom corner.Ten minutes before the police had arrived.Adrian rewound the footage.“Watch carefully,” he said.Casey folded his arms, jaw tight. Alexander stood near the window again, silent and contained. Cameron leaned against the wall, unusually still.The footage rolled.A man Casey recognized—barely—stepped out of the apartment’s side bedroom. He wasn’t someone Casey knew well. Just a friend of a friend. One of the guys who’d arrived later in the evening with a case of drinks and loud music.The man paused near a side table in the living room.He bent slightly.His hand moved quickly.Then he walked away.Adrian froze the frame.“Enhanc

Rowan’s Stand

The internal hearing room was smaller than Rowan expected.Not a courtroom. Not dramatic. Just fluorescent lights, beige walls, and a long rectangular table that made everything feel clinical instead of grand. A digital recorder blinked red in the center, documenting every word.Rowan sat upright in her dress uniform, dark hair pulled back tight, tattoos hidden beneath sleeves that felt heavier than usual. Her boots were polished. Her jaw was steady.Across the table sat Internal Affairs.Two captains. One deputy chief. A civilian oversight rep.And the quiet hum of suspicion.“Officer Rowan Callahan,” the deputy chief began, voice neutral. “You understand this hearing is to determine whether your conduct during and after the Cross arrest compromised departmental integrity.”“Yes, sir,” she replied evenly.Her tone didn’t waver.It couldn’t.“You were lead officer during the sweep at the apartment on East Grant,” the captain said. “You placed Casey Cross under arrest.”“Yes.”“Did you

Public Reckoning

The Cross family didn’t panic when headlines turned.They planned.They waited until the timing was right—until facts had teeth, until the narrative had begun to wobble on its own weight. Then they stepped into the light and took the story back.Not with a smear campaign.With truth.On a gray Thursday morning, Casey Cross stood behind a podium in the Cross Enterprises media room, the kind designed for quarterly earnings and polished corporate optimism. Today it looked different.Today it looked like accountability.Two flags behind him. Company logo to his left. A row of cameras in front.The room was packed.Reporters. Bloggers. Legal analysts. Two people from Internal Affairs, present but not participating. Security posted discreetly at the corners—Alexander’s insistence.Alexander sat in the second row, face unreadable, presence steady. Adrian stood off to the side, hands clasped in front of him, calm as a surgeon. Cameron hovered near the back, jaw set, looking less like a supers

Clearing the Badge

Rowan found out she was reinstated the same way she’d found out she was suspended.Not with kindness.With procedure.Her phone buzzed at 7:18 a.m. as she stood in her kitchen, staring at a mug she’d reheated twice and still hadn’t drank. The apartment smelled faintly like burnt toast—she’d set the bread too long because her mind kept looping on the same sentence:You’re suspended pending review.She’d repeated it so many times the words had lost shape. Like a phrase in a language she didn’t speak anymore.The email came from Internal Affairs.Subject: Reinstatement — Effective Immediately.Rowan’s fingers went still on the handle of her mug.She opened it without blinking.A few short paragraphs. Cold. Clean. Final.“No evidence of misconduct.”“No breach of policy.”“Officer Rowan Callahan is cleared and reinstated to full duty.”Rowan read it twice.Then a third time.Her chest didn’t loosen the way she expected it to. There was no burst of relief, no triumph. No sudden warmth spre

The Last Threat

Rowan didn’t notice the black sedan at first.Not because she’d gotten sloppy—because she’d spent two weeks under scrutiny learning to keep her face neutral even when her nerves were screaming. Because she was tired. Because she was trying, for once, to believe the storm had passed.She’d been reinstated for three days.Three shifts back on patrol. Three mornings of rolling her shoulders into her vest like it didn’t feel heavier now. Three nights of coming home and double-checking the deadbolt like it was a habit instead of fear.The media cycle had moved on, as it always did.New scandal. New outrage.But the people who’d engineered her pain? They didn’t move on the same way the internet did.They watched.Rowan parked outside a small corner pharmacy after shift, still in uniform but with her hair loosened and her sleeves rolled slightly. She needed two things: ibuprofen and silence.The air outside was crisp, the sun lowering behind buildings. She stepped out of her car and heard th

Family Table

The Cross estate always smelled like comfort when the sun went down.Not the artificial kind—no candle-heavy sweetness or staged warmth meant for guests. This was real comfort: rosemary and garlic drifting from the kitchen, polished wood retaining the day’s heat, laughter echoing off high ceilings because no one in this house had learned to whisper their love.Casey arrived with a knot in his chest he couldn’t quite name.He’d told himself he was fine.He’d gone to the station with Rowan like she asked. He’d watched her file the report like she was filing paperwork about a broken taillight, not a calculated intimidation attempt. He’d listened while she spoke to her sergeant and refused to let anyone spin it into panic. He’d admired her again in that quiet, stubborn way he couldn’t shake.Then he’d driven home and realized the adrenaline was gone and what was left was… weight.Guilt, mostly. The kind that didn’t leave bruises, just exhaustion.When he walked into the dining room, the f

Choosing

Rowan didn’t answer Casey’s invitation right away.Not because she didn’t want to.Because wanting something had become dangerous.She read his text in the quiet of her car, parked outside her apartment, the streetlamp above her hood flickering like it couldn’t decide whether to stay on. Her uniform itched. Her shoulders ached. Her badge felt heavier now that she’d fought to get it back.Come to dinner next time. You’d be welcome.Welcome.Rowan stared at the word until it stopped looking like letters and started feeling like a trap—warm on the surface, complicated underneath.She tucked her phone into her pocket and went upstairs without replying.Inside, the apartment was dim. The flowers still sat on her counter, slightly wilted, their whiteness too delicate for the mood she carried.Rowan changed out of her uniform slowly, like shedding armor. She washed her face, brushed her teeth, and tried to tell herself she was fine.She wasn’t.She climbed into bed and lay there staring at t

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