Chapter 12 - SABRINA’S VERSION
Sabrina wanted me to believe she was another victim.
She was not.
Victims do not become innocent simply because the person they helped eventually turns against them.
She had shoved me.
Helped monitor me.
Participated in financial transfers.
Bought surveillance equipment.
Mocked me in my own home.
But her story still mattered.
Damian had promised her half of everything he gained.
He told her I was unstable.
He said our marriage existed only on paper.
He claimed I had refused divorce because I was obsessed with him.
The lies sounded familiar.
He told me Sabrina was unstable too.
That she flirted with him relentlessly.
That he tolerated her because Cross Meridian needed her contacts.
Damian had constructed separate realities for every person around him.
No one compared notes.
That was the secret.
Sabrina finally did.
She gave investigators her phone.
Not willingly.
Strategically.
She knew the walls were closing.
The device contained deleted messages recovered by forensic specialists.
One dated four months earlier.
Damian:
AFTER DELIVERY, SHE SIGNS OR THE DOCTOR DECLARES HER UNFIT.
Sabrina:
WHAT IF SHE REFUSES BOTH?
Damian:
THEN WE USE THE EMERGENCY PLAN.
Sabrina:
THE INSURANCE?
Damian:
DON’T WRITE THAT HERE.
No direct confession.
But enough to make the room silent.
Another exchange concerned my father.
Sabrina:
WHAT IF WARD FINDS OUT?
Damian:
SHE HATES HIM.
Sabrina:
PEOPLE RECONCILE.
Damian:
NOT CLAIRE.
I stared at that line longer than the others.
Not Claire.
Damian’s confidence had not come from faith in our marriage.
It came from faith in my pride.
He believed he understood the parts of me that would never change.
That was his fatal mistake.
I had changed.
So had my father.
Damian had not.
Three weeks remained before my due date.
Cross Meridian’s board removed Damian as CEO pending investigation.
Trading partners suspended contracts.
Banks froze suspicious accounts.
Damian still had money.
Lots of it.
But suddenly money was not functioning the way it always had.
He could hire lawyers.
He could buy publicity.
He could rent private cars.
What he could not buy was certainty.
And Damian needed certainty like oxygen.
That was when he made his next mistake.
He visited my father.
Not at home.
At the courthouse.
Nathaniel was leaving work when Damian approached him on the public steps.
Cameras were everywhere.
Reporters too.
Damian smiled.
“Judge Ward.”
Nathaniel kept walking.
“Your daughter will destroy herself.”
My father stopped.
Damian stepped closer.
“You know that, don’t you?”
Nathaniel said nothing.
“You couldn’t control her seven years ago.”
More cameras turned.
“So now you’re using me to get her back.”
Nathaniel looked at him.
“No.”
Damian smiled.
“Then why are you helping her?”
My father’s answer appeared on television that night.
“Because she asked me to stand beside her.”
Nothing more.
No threats.
No accusations.
Damian looked furious.
He had tried to provoke the powerful judge.
Instead, he got a father.
Later that night, Nathaniel admitted something.
“I wanted to hit him.”
I laughed.
“Really?”
“Very much.”
“What stopped you?”
“You.”
“Me?”
“I spent seven years learning that my anger does not give me the right to decide what happens in your life.”
I looked at him.
“You really have changed.”
“Pain is an expensive teacher.”
The next morning, my water broke.
Three weeks early.
May you like
And when we arrived at the hospital, a nurse looked at my chart and said something that froze everyone around me.
“Mrs. Cross, your husband already checked in.”
