Chapter 7 - What Samuel Knew Before He Died
Claire found the first clue in Samuel’s archived business correspondence.
Not a secret will.
Not a dramatic letter.
A boring email chain from four years earlier.
Samuel had questioned Paul about payments to an LLC called Northline Residential Partners.
Paul explained that the company was exploring a small townhome project outside Alpharetta.
Samuel rejected it.
Too leveraged.
Too speculative.
Too dependent on presales.
He wrote one sentence:
Do not place Cross family funds in this project.
Northline never appeared in our approved investments.
But Claire discovered something else.
PR Consulting had transferred money to Northline.
More than half a million dollars.
And one of Northline’s managing members was Brianna.
Megan stared at the records.
“So she moved family money into her own development.”
“Possibly,” Claire said. “We still need the complete accounting.”
Jason leaned back.
“Does Brian know she owns part of it?”
I doubted it.
Northline had formed under Brianna’s maiden name.
That was not illegal by itself.
But hiding her involvement from Brian was harder to explain.
Then another detail surfaced.
Paul owned twelve percent.
The old affair partner and my daughter-in-law were still financially connected.
Suddenly Megan’s threat in the kitchen made sense.
Brian knew Brianna had slept with Paul before the wedding.
What he did not know was that the two of them had continued doing business in secret for years.
I remembered Brianna freezing when Megan mentioned the affair.
She wasn’t terrified that Brian would learn what she had done before marrying him.
She was terrified he would start asking what had happened afterward.
I called Brian.
“I need you to come alone.”
He arrived forty minutes later.
I placed Northline’s ownership filing in front of him.
He read it.
Then read it again.
“My wife owns this?”
“Yes.”
“With Paul?”
“Yes.”
Brian slowly sat down.
May you like
For the first time since the hospital, he stopped defending Brianna.
“What the hell have they been doing?”
