Chapter 4 - Project Blackthorn
I refused to go to the hospital until my father told me the truth.
He refused to tell me in front of Nathan.
We compromised.
Dr. Ellis treated me in the rear cabin of my father’s armored vehicle while the convoy remained parked outside Blackthorn Manor.
Dad sat opposite me.
For several minutes, neither of us spoke.
I watched him remove his glasses.
He looked older than he had an hour earlier.
“Project Blackthorn was never about Nathan personally.”
“Then why was his company involved?”
Dad folded his hands.
“After your mother died, I began moving portions of the family trust into businesses that could operate independently of the Bennett name.”
I had known about some of that.
Not this.
“We used several funds.”
“One invested in early logistics companies.”
“Nathan’s company was one of them.”
“How much?”
“Initially?”
“Yes.”
“Eight million.”
I stared at him.
Nathan had told everyone his first major expansion came from an anonymous institutional investor.
That investment had allowed him to buy warehouses in three states.
It had changed his life.
My father had been behind it.
“You made him.”
“No.”
“You funded him.”
“I funded hundreds of companies.”
“But then I married one of their founders.”
Dad’s jaw tightened.
“That was not planned.”
“Did you know we were dating?”
“Not immediately.”
“How long before the wedding did you know?”
“Four months.”
“And you said nothing.”
“I checked whether the investment created a conflict.”
“That is not what I mean.”
Dad looked at me.
“I know.”
My eyes burned.
“You warned me not to tell Nathan who you were.”
“Yes.”
“Was that really to test his character?”
“In part.”
“In part?”
Dad looked through the tinted window toward the manor.
“Claire, there was something else.”
I knew I would hate it.
“Say it.”
“Nathan’s company had begun receiving unusual contracts.”
“From whom?”
“We did not know.”
“One of our analysts believed someone was using Ashford Global to map the financing structures behind our family holdings.”
A chill moved through me.
“You thought Nathan was spying on you?”
“We thought someone around him might be.”
“Celeste?”
“She had not joined the company yet.”
I stared at him.
“Then who?”
“That was the problem.”
Dad continued.
“We created an internal investigation.”
“The code name was Blackthorn.”
I looked back toward the mansion.
“Why that name?”
“Because one of the suspicious transfers was linked to a dormant company called Blackthorn Advisory.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who owned it?”
“We never proved beneficial ownership.”
“Never?”
“The company dissolved shortly before your wedding.”
I tried to understand.
“So you knew there was something suspicious around Nathan.”
“Yes.”
“And you still let me marry him.”
Pain crossed my father’s face.
“I tried to convince you to slow down.”
“You told me he was ambitious.”
“I could not accuse him of something I could not prove.”
“You could have told me there was an investigation.”
“And if Nathan was innocent?”
“That should have been my decision.”
Dad looked down.
“You’re right.”
I had never heard my father say those words so quickly.
That made me angrier.
I turned away.
Dr. Ellis tightened a bandage near my shoulder.
I winced.
Dad saw it.
His eyes filled with fury again.
“I should have told you.”
“Yes.”
“I thought I was protecting you from a war you did not need to inherit.”
“I married into it anyway.”
“Yes.”
My phone vibrated.
Evelyn was calling.
I answered.
“Claire.”
Her voice was tense.
“We found something in Nathan’s study.”
“What?”
“A physical ledger.”
Nathan kept almost everything digitally.
A handwritten ledger made no sense.
“Whose?”
“We don’t know.”
“What’s in it?”
“Payments.”
“To Celeste?”
“Some.”
Evelyn paused.
“Claire, your name appears in this book.”
I stopped breathing.
“How?”
“Monthly entries.”
“For what?”
“That’s what we’re trying to determine.”
“How far back?”
Another pause.
“Before you met Nathan.”
My father looked at me.
I put the call on speaker.
Evelyn continued.
“The first payment associated with your name is dated fourteen months before your first date with him.”
My father’s face hardened.
“Read the notation.”
Evelyn hesitated.
Then she did.
“C.B. contact established.”
My hands went cold.
Nathan had always told me our meeting was accidental.
A charity auction.
A spilled glass of wine.
A charming apology.
A story we had repeated for years.
It suddenly sounded rehearsed.
Dad leaned forward.
“Next entry.”
Evelyn turned a page.
“Target relationship progressing.”
No one in the vehicle moved.
I felt as if the air had disappeared.
My marriage had just changed from a betrayal into something far worse.
May you like
Nathan may not have met me by accident.
He may have been sent to find me.
