Chapter 5
Northgate Family Logistics belonged to someone Cassian knew.
Not personally.
By reputation.
Peter Shaw.
Forty-eight.
Former private-security executive.
Lucinda’s older half-brother.
Cassian stared at the ownership chart.
“She never disclosed that.”
“No,” Katherine said.
“Foundation related-party rules?”
“Require disclosure.”
“Trust rules?”
“Also.”
“Who approved Northgate originally?”
“Dominic.”
That surprised him.
His father had hired Lucinda’s brother before Cassian ever met Lucinda.
Katherine explained.
Dominic knew Lucinda’s family socially for years.
Peter’s company had legitimate relocation expertise.
The original contract was real.
The fees were not initially outrageous.
Then Dominic died.
Lucinda married Cassian eighteen months later.
Northgate’s annual billing nearly tripled.
Service descriptions became broader.
Beneficiary reputation containment.
Extended protective monitoring.
Sensitive heir relocation readiness.
Cassian stared at the last phrase.
“Readiness for what?”
“No documented event.”
The company charged more than $300,000 across two years merely to maintain “relocation capacity” for Lucas and Leah.
Leah knew nothing about it.
Katherine found private-investigator invoices too.
Lucas had been watched periodically.
School.
Sports.
Travel.
Not continuously.
But enough.
Cassian hated every page.
“Why?”
“Dominic originally wanted to ensure the situation stayed private.”
“My father surveilled a child?”
“His mother, mostly.”
“Same problem.”
“Yes.”
After Lucinda gained control, monitoring changed.
Investigators began recording Lucas’s social habits.
Teachers.
Friends.
Whether he asked about his father.
Whether Leah had discussed paternity publicly.
One report included a photograph of twelve-year-old Lucas looking at a magazine with Cassian on the cover.
A handwritten note:
Increasing curiosity. Risk of independent contact rising.
Initials:
L.R.
Lucinda Romano.
Cassian’s expression hardened.
Katherine continued.
Three months before the hotel event, Lucinda ordered Northgate to prepare an “emergency transition package.”
That package included:
Thirty-day confidential housing.
A new private school application.
Temporary mail forwarding.
Phone replacement.
Social-media suspension.
Legal counsel.
Leah had never authorized any of that at the time.
Cassian looked at Katherine.
“She was planning to move them before the payments stopped.”
“Yes.”
Then they found something else.
Lucinda had consulted a crisis-communications firm.
Topic:
Undisclosed descendant exposure — principal response strategy.
The principal was Cassian.
The draft contained two scenarios.
Scenario A:
Cassian acknowledges he never knew.
Scenario B:
Evidence suggests Cassian funded secrecy for twelve years.
Under Scenario B, the recommended media framing was devastating.
A feared crime figure privately finances a child while publicly presenting himself as a devoted father to Millie.
Questions about why the boy was hidden.
Questions about threats.
Questions about the foundation money.
Questions about whether Leah had been coerced.
All built from documents bearing Cassian’s signature.
The signatures had not yet been authenticated.
Cassian knew why.
The family office kept archived digital signature files for routine approvals.
Dominic had used them.
Lucinda later inherited access.
Cassian looked toward the fake paternity acknowledgment.
“She was building a story.”
“Yes.”
“Why now?”
“That’s the part we still need.”
Money was one possibility.
Northgate had received inflated fees.
But $1.4 million over years was not enough by itself to explain risking everything.
Katherine turned another page.
The Romano Family Foundation was scheduled for its first full independent forensic audit in fourteen years.
Start date:
Monday.
Four days after the charity gala.
May you like
Lucinda’s emergency relocation of Leah and Lucas was scheduled to begin Friday night.
The timing was no longer subtle.
