All Chapters of The Divorce That Made Me A Billionaire : Chapter 191 - Chapter 200

VICTORIAI had learned something important over the last two years: timing was everything when it came to asking hard questions.Ask too soon, while everything was still hot and loud and everyone was still in reaction mode, and you would get defensive answers, with people protecting themselves instead of telling you the truth. But ask at the right moment when the noise had settled and the walls had come down just a little, and you would get something real.So I waited.I waited through the drive back to the city. I waited through the debrief with Elio, which took almost an hour because there was a lot to cover and Elio was thorough. I waited while Clark made his calls, standing by the window with his phone against his ear, his voice sounding low and calm as he talked to people on the other end who were probably somewhere else in the world.I waited until the apartment was quiet and the city was half asleep, because New York never really slept. Then I sat down across from Clark at the

VICTORIAI told Clark and Isabella where I was going.I wasn't reckless. I had learned that lesson a long time ago, the hard way, and it had stuck. You had to tell the people who would come for you where you were going. You didn’t just disappear without a word just because the moment felt personal.But I made this drive alone. Isabella tried to come with me. She argued her case confidently. I listened to the whole thing, told her I heard her, and got in the car by myself.Clark didn't argue. He just looked at me for a moment and nodded. That was one of the things about him that still surprised me sometimes.The drive was two hours. Connecticut came up gradually around me as the city gave way to slower roads, and the light changed as I got further from the buildings and closer to trees and long grass, everywhere feeling quiet.I thought about what I was going to say. I had rehearsed it probably a hundred times over the last two years in my subconscious, in those moments late at night w

VICTORIA"Nathaniel Voss," Clark said.I waited for the name to mean something to me. It didn't."Harlan Voss was the man you met in Geneva," Clark said. "He’s Nathaniel’s son."Of course, I’d met Harlan. I sat across from him at a polished table in a quiet room and negotiated. Harlan had been very careful about what he said.His father, apparently, was a different person entirely."Nathaniel is seventy one," Clark said. "He's a retired federal judge. He's been out of the public eye for over a decade. He's one of the founding members of the Hawthorne Syndicate.""Why isn't he in any of the documents?" I asked."Because he made sure he wouldn't be. He doesn't put himself in anything. He doesn't send messages you can trace. He doesn't show up to meetings. He operates through other people entirely. The people you've been dealing with, the names you've pulled from those files, and the connections you've found out… those are all people who work for him. Or worked for him. He's the one at t

VICTORIAThe first hour I told myself the meeting was still active.Clark had gone in knowing he needed to be convincing. You couldn’t sell a lie to a man like Nathaniel Voss while glancing at your phone every few minutes. He’d gone dark on purpose. That was the plan. That was fine.The second hour I told myself it was a security thing. There were no signals in or out because Clark was being careful. Nathaniel's people probably swept the room before they even sat down.By the third hour, I had stopped telling myself anything, and I was already moving.I called Elio first. "Clark went to meet Nathaniel Voss two hours ago and he's not picking up. I need a location."Elio didn't ask questions. He was typing before I finished the sentence. It took him eleven minutes."His last confirmed location is a building in Midtown," he said. "East 54th. The address belongs to a corporate entity with no public presence, registered two years ago.""Who else is in the building?""Can't tell from here.

VICTORIAHe talked for thirty minutes straight.There were no interruptions or dramatic pauses for effect. He just talked as if he’d finally decided that the most powerful thing he could do was tell the truth. He kept his hands folded in his lap and his eyes on me, not looking away once.I let him talk. I didn't move. I barely even breathed.He started with my mother.He said that Sarah Hale's poisoning was not a warning to Richard. That was what everyone had been told, what the Syndicate had used as the official story for years. But the real reason she was removed from her life, hidden away, kept medicated and isolated and unreachable, was that she had found something out.Something about my birth.He said it plainly as though he’d been holding onto it for a long time and had finally decided to just say it. "You’re not Richard Hale's biological daughter."I chewed on that. The room didn't spin. My hands didn't shake. I just sat there and let the words settle.He continued.My biologi