Chapter 4 - The Alibi Crumbles
The morning sun rose over Chicago, casting a harsh, unyielding light across the sleek glass facade of Cross Atlantic Freight headquarters in the West Loop.
Damien Cross sat behind his massive walnut desk, reviewing quarterly shipping manifests while sipping black coffee. The dark circles under his eyes were the only physical evidence of a restless night. Despite his dismissal of Grace's calls, a strange, persistent knot had refused to leave his chest since midnight.
He had tried calling her mansion line twice around 3:00 AM. No answer.
He had called her cell phone. Straight to voicemail.
Just as he reached for his intercom to instruct his assistant to check on her, the heavy oak doors of his office banged open without warning.
Damien frowned, looking up with a cold, executive glare ready on his lips. “I didn't buzz for you, Miss Vance—wait, what are you doing here?”
It wasn't Victoria Vance.
It was Julian Vance, Damien’s chief head of security and intelligence—no relation to Victoria, though they traveled in the same high-priced political circles. Julian looked pale, sweating despite the air conditioning, holding a thick manila folder and a printed police report.
Julian didn't wait for an invitation. He walked straight to the desk and slammed the folder down onto the polished wood.
“You have a serious problem, boss,” Julian said, his voice unusually strained.
Damien leaned back, folding his hands over his chest. “If this is about the union strike in Gary, handle it. Pay them off or call the DA. I don't have time for logistics crises this morning—my wife isn't answering her phone and— bullpen—”
“This isn't about the unions, Damien,” Julian interrupted, cutting him off completely—a transgression that would have cost any other employee their job. “This is about last night. About Lake Shore Drive.”
Damien’s eyes narrowed. “Lake Shore Drive? What about it?”
Julian opened the folder, sliding a printed accident report and a digital flash drive across the desk. “At 9:14 PM yesterday, a black Mercedes registered to your residential estate was T-boned by a stolen SUV near the old marina exit. The driver was trapped for nearly forty minutes before emergency services cut her out.”
The air in the office seemed to vanish.
Damien stood up so fast his leather chair rolled back and slammed into the glass wall. “Who?” he demanded, his voice dropping into a dangerous, ragged whisper. “Who was driving?”
“Your wife, Damien,” Julian said flatly. “Grace.”
For a second, the universe stopped spinning. The numbers rushed back into Damien’s brain with terrifying clarity—thirteen missed calls. The buzzing phone on the armchair in the Drake penthouse while Victoria Vance kissed his neck. The voicemail notifications he had deliberately ignored because he thought his wife was being dramatic.
“No,” Damien breathed, walking around the desk. “No, that’s impossible. She was at home. She called me... she called me for help.”
“Thirteen times,” Julian corrected, his tone merciless. “According to the carrier logs recovered by the Chicago Police Department, the first call came in at 9:16 PM—two minutes after impact. The last call was at 9:55 PM. Right around the time you were ordering second-round drinks at the Drake.”
Damien stared at his head of security, the color draining entirely from his face. The polished billionaire, the man who owned judges and politicians, felt like he had been kicked in the chest by a horse.
“Is she... is she alive?” Damien choked out, the words tasting like ash.
“She’s at Northwestern Memorial,” Julian replied. “She survived. But she lost the baby, Damien. She was six weeks pregnant. The internal trauma was catastrophic.”
Damien stumbled backward, his hand catching the edge of the mahogany desk to steady himself. “Pregnant,” he whispered. “She... she was pregnant?”
“She didn't know how to tell you because she knew you were too busy with Victoria Vance to listen,” Julian said, not bothering to hide his disgust. “And now? The police have your phone records. The media is already sniffing around because a high-profile traffic accident involving a Cross vehicle always attracts vultures. But that’s not even the worst part.”
Julian tapped the flash drive on the desk.
“What is that?” Damien asked, his voice shaking.
“That is an audio file that was automatically dispatched to your sister-in-law’s email at midnight,” Julian said grimly. “A voice memo recorded by Grace while she was bleeding out in the wreckage. In it, she details the crash, identifies the vehicle that hit her—which our preliminary checks show belongs to one of Victoria Vance’s cut-out shell corporations—and explicitly states that she tried to call her husband thirteen times for help, and thirteen times, you abandoned her to die.”
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Damien stared at the flash drive as if it were a live grenade.
His empire—built on intimidation, wealth, and absolute control—was about to be blown sky-high by a seven-minute voice recording recorded by a dying woman he had refused to save.
