Chapter 17 - JULIAN’S INHERITANCEJulian laughed when we told him.
Not because it was funny.
Because sometimes disbelief sounds like laughter.
“Me?”
“Yes.”
“Dad barely tolerated me.”
Evelyn looked away.
Julian saw it.
“Mom?”
She started crying.
And then came the cruelest truth yet.
Vincent Cross was not Julian’s biological father.
Victor Kane was.
Nobody spoke.
Julian stared at Evelyn.
“No.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No.”
“Julian—”
“You told me Victor was your son.”
“He was.”
Dorian slowly understood.
“So Victor was Julian’s father?”
Evelyn nodded.
One terrible night.
Years after she married Vincent.
After discovering Victor was the son she had surrendered.
Victor was angry.
Evelyn was devastated.
Both had been drinking.
One boundary collapsed.
She became pregnant.
Vincent discovered the truth.
And did something nobody expected.
He claimed Julian as his own.
Not from kindness alone.
From shame.
From control.
Perhaps even from love.
Human motives are rarely clean.
Victor later forged the trust documents to make Dorian’s future child the beneficiary.
Why?
Because if Julian inherited the original trust, auditors would eventually examine the hidden paternity clause Vincent had attached.
Victor wanted the money.
But more importantly, he wanted the truth buried.
Julian walked out.
Dorian followed.
I stopped him.
“Give him five minutes.”
“He shouldn’t be alone.”
“He just learned his brother is technically his nephew, his father isn’t his father and the man who kidnapped his mother was his biological father.”
Dorian considered.
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“Ten minutes.”
Progress.
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