Chapter 13 - Grant’s Counterattack
Grant did not confess.
He sued.
Sterling Capital.
Marcus.
My father’s estate.
And me.
His complaint alleged that the company had manufactured evidence to scapegoat him for institutional failures.
Then his attorneys released selected internal emails.
One made Dad look terrible.
William Sterling to Marcus Reed:
HAYES MUST GO BEFORE FRIDAY. I DON’T CARE HOW.
Real email.
Real words.
Caleb called me furious.
“So that’s your innocent father?”
“I never said he was innocent.”
That stopped him.
Dad had wanted Caleb removed.
Attachment C suggested Grant manipulated credentials.
Both facts could coexist.
Why had Dad written the email?
Jonathan found the surrounding chain.
A major client had threatened to withdraw $600 million if the trading irregularities continued.
Dad believed Caleb was responsible at the time.
He demanded immediate removal.
Grant supplied manipulated evidence.
Dad accepted it.
The context made Dad less malicious.
Not blameless.
Then Grant released something more damaging.
Photographs of Sophie crying inside the mansion.
Taken through the hidden camera.
He claimed they proved the Sterling household had been unsafe long before Vanessa was exposed.
The photographs spread online.
My daughter became content.
That broke something in me.
My first instinct was to issue every photograph we had of Sophie happy and safe.
My attorney stopped me.
“Don’t turn her childhood into competing exhibits.”
She was right.
We released one statement asking media outlets to protect a minor’s privacy and provided relevant evidence only through appropriate proceedings.
Grant expected me to fight publicly.
I refused.
Then Marcus traced how Grant obtained the hidden-camera images.
Halcyon.
Caleb’s investigators had shared material with Grant’s legal team.
Caleb was stunned.
“I never authorized that.”
Halcyon’s director produced a contract provision allowing the firm to use subcontractors and consultants for “risk mitigation.”
One consultant was Diane Mercer.
Diane had sold copies.
To Grant.
The opposing sides had secretly shared the same source without knowing it.
Diane wasn’t loyal to Caleb.
Or Grant.
She was selling information.
Investigators located financial payments from both networks.
And one payment from Vanessa.
That was the twist I didn’t expect.
Vanessa had paid Diane $40,000 one month earlier.
For what?
Vanessa’s attorney eventually answered.
“To obtain information about Richard’s prenuptial agreement.”
There was no signed prenup yet.
Only drafts.
Vanessa had been preparing for marriage financially while still blackmailing Caleb and mistreating Sophie.
The engagement wasn’t just access anymore.
May you like
She intended to stay.
📖 Vanessa had transformed Caleb’s temporary infiltration into a permanent plan to marry me, and the prenup files revealed exactly what she hoped to gain by becoming Sophie’s stepmother. 👇
