Chapter 27 - Julian's Insight
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Leaving the safe house in Marcus's capable hands, I headed to the university library. Julian Thorne had texted me earlier, claiming he had found something critical regarding the Sterling family history.
I found Julian deep in the restricted archives, surrounded by towering stacks of century-old property deeds and municipal records. He looked up, his glasses pushed onto his forehead, and smiled brightly when he saw me.
"Amelia! Thank God you're here. Are you alright? I heard about the break-in at the museum," Julian said, rushing over to check on me.
"I'm fine, Julian. Just a little shaken, but the ledger is perfectly secure," I assured him, touched by his genuine concern. "What did you find?"
Julian guided me to a large wooden table covered in fragile maps.
"I spent the entire night cross-referencing the names from the Obsidian Ledger with the city's historical zoning maps," Julian explained, pointing to a large, red-circled area on an 1885 plat map. "Every single woman listed in that ledger owned a parcel of land in this specific sector."
I leaned in, examining the map. "This is the current downtown financial district."
"Exactly," Julian nodded excitedly. "The Sterlings didn't just steal random assets. They aggressively targeted and coerced vulnerable women to acquire contiguous parcels of land to build their first massive commercial skyscraper. And here is the kicker."
He pulled out a modern zoning report.
"Arthur Sterling’s current flagship project, the new Sterling Tech Tower, is being built on an expansion of this exact same footprint. To do it, he had to aggressively acquire properties from small business owners through shell companies over the last five years."
"Sarah Jenkins told us she witnessed real estate fraud," I breathed, my mind connecting the dots at lightning speed. "Arthur is using the same shell company structures his ancestors used to illegally force people out of their properties today. He’s masking the hostile takeovers as legitimate bankruptcies."
"Amelia, if you can prove the modern fraud, and tie it to the historical blueprint in the ledger, you won't just ruin his PR. You’ll dismantle his entire corporate empire," Julian said, looking at me with profound admiration.
"We are going to need access to the city's sealed digital property transfers," I said, my mind racing.
Julian reached out and gently touched my arm. "You are incredible, you know that? Most people would have run away after a break-in like that. But you just keep pushing forward."
May you like
I looked at him, feeling a sudden, warm flutter in my chest. He didn't look at me like Amelia Grant, the fragile billionaire heiress. He looked at me like a formidable colleague.
"I have a lot of lost time to make up for, Julian," I smiled softly. "And I'm not running away ever again."
