Chapter 171: Unmasking the Ghost

Justin’s POV

Three hours.

That was how long I had been sitting frozen on the edge of the mattress, systematically tearing through the documents in that file.

Three agonizing hours of wading through toxicological reports, secret financial ledgers, clinical notes, terrifying witness statements, timelines of my mother’s decline, names of shady intermediaries, offshore transactions, and pieces of evidence that made my stomach turn into violent knots.

By the time I finally slammed the thick folder shut, the physical and emotional exhaustion was overwhelming.

But far more than exhaustion, I felt utterly appalled.

There was so much rot. So much evil that had been calculated behind closed doors while my mother lay helpless in her bed. So much that nobody in our family had ever suspected. So many gruesome details that had been carefully buried beneath non-disclosure agreements and high-priced corporate cover-ups.

I leaned my head back against the headboard, dragging both hands down my face, my palms pressing against my aching eyes.

Yet, through all the horror documented on those pages, one single, burning question refused to leave me alone.

Who the fuck was this woman?

Everyone in my father’s circle kept talking about what she had done.

She wanted the family empire. She wanted my father’s wealth. She wanted the status of the marriage. She wanted absolute control over the firm.

Fine. That explained her greed.

But where had she actually come from? Who was Diane before she methodically wormed her way into my father’s life all those years ago? Who were her parents? Who was her mother, really? Who was her father? Where was she born? What kind of bloodline produced someone so devoid of human empathy? How had she even managed to cross paths with a man as cautious as my father in the first place?

The more I turned it over in my head, the less sense any of it made.

A woman like Diane didn’t just spawn out of thin air with the intelligence, connections, and cold precision needed to execute a multi-year poisoning and a complex corporate fraud scheme. There had to be a history. There had to be old debts, shadow figures, or handlers connected to her past.

And if this entire nightmare was bigger and deeper than the surface charges we were looking at in court, I needed to know the full picture before I made my next move.

I wasn’t interested in walking blindly into a courtroom, relying solely on my father’s compromised narrative. If I was going after Diane to avenge my mother, I wanted absolute leverage.

I wanted every dirty connection. Every ghost in her closet. Every person who had ever helped her hide a body. Every possible scrap of leverage.

I reached down and grabbed my phone off the nightstand.

I scrolled past my recent calls down to a specific private number saved deep in my contacts a contact I had explicitly sworn to myself I would never touch again.

I stared down at the screen, my heart heavy. I had made that promise for a damn good reason. The guy was a ruthless hound, and involving him meant crossing a line I had spent years avoiding.

But things had changed. The rules were different now.

I hit call and brought the phone to my ear.

It rang once.

Twice.

Then a calm, smooth voice answered on the third ring.

"Mr. Justin."

I closed my eyes, a faint, bitter breath escaping my nose. "This small motherfucker."

"Hello?" the voice drawled smoothly.

I took a sharp breath. "I know."

There was a brief, loaded silence on the other end of the line. "I know I said I’d never call you again," I added, my tone hard as granite.

"You did," the voice confirmed, sounding mildly entertained. "You were very clear about it, as I recall."

"I need your help."

The tone on the other side shifted instantly, the playful edge dropping into sharp professionalism. "Okay." A quiet rustle of paper came through the speaker. "What exactly do you need help with, Justin? It must be pretty fucking serious if you’ve decided to pick up the phone and break your own cardinal rule."

"It is," I said quietly, looking over at the thick, dark file sitting on the bed beside me. "I need you to investigate someone for me. A full deep dive."

"Who’s the target?"

"My stepmother. Diane." I paused, my jaw clenching tightly. "I need a total, unredacted background check. Her family lineage. Her parents. Where she was born. Where she grew up. Every person she’s been connected to in the last twenty years. Everything you can pull out of the dirt."

He remained quiet for a beat, processing the scale. "How detailed are we talking here?"

"Everything," I emphasized, leaning forward, resting my elbow on my knee. "I don’t want a basic public records search. I want something I can actually use to destroy her in a court of law. Give me her real family background, hidden bank accounts, old associates anything that explains where she came from and how she operates."

A low chuckle vibrated through the speaker. "You know I charge an arm and a leg for that level of dig, right?"

A faint, sharp smirk touched the corner of my lips. "And you know I have more than enough money to pay whatever price you name."

That made him crack a loud laugh. "Okay. Fair enough. I like doing business with rich men seeking vengeance." He cleared his throat. "Send me her full legal name and whatever scraps you already have on her. I’ll start digging from the root up."

"Thank you."

"Don’t thank me yet, Justin."

"I’ll wait for the results," I said, my voice cold and firm.

We cut the call.

I stared blankly at the dark phone screen for a long moment, feeling the cold momentum building in my chest. Then I navigated to another contact.

My personal attorney.

I had been putting off this call for days, waiting for the right moment. Now was as good a time as any.

He answered on the second ring. "Justin?"

"Hey."

"Is everything okay? I saw the news about your father’s firm."

"I called to tell you we’re going to the trial," I cut straight through, leaving no room for debate.

There was a stunned pause on the line. "What?"

"The trial next week. I’m going to be sitting in that courtroom."

"You called me just to confirm that?"

"Yes," I said, rubbing my forehead to dull the pulsing headache behind my eyes. "But more than that, I need you to prepare every legal weapon you can get your hands on."

My lawyer’s demeanor instantly shifted to dead serious. "Okay. Talk to me."

"My father has a file. Medical records, toxicology findings, investigation reports, witness statements everything the state and his private team have collected so far. I’m having his legal representation forward the entire file to your office tonight so you can dissect it."

"That works. I’ll review it immediately."

"I want you to understand every single line of that case better than the prosecutors do," I demanded, my tone cutting. "And if there’s any separate civil suit we can file, any additional criminal charges we can push for, any legal angle to ensure she never sees the sun again..."

I stopped. My jaw tightened so hard my teeth ached.

"I want to know about it."

My lawyer was silent for a second, sensing the absolute venom in my voice. "Understood, Justin."

"I want this woman to go down. Completely."

"Then we’ll make sure we execute everything by the book and hit her from every side."

I gave a firm nod, even though he couldn’t see me. "Good."

"Don’t worry about the paperwork," he added reassuringly. "I’ll reach out to your father’s lead attorney directly tonight and get the entire file transferred over."

"Okay." I leaned back against the headboard, feeling a strange, dark focus taking over my mind. "I trust you to handle this right."

"I won’t let you down."

I ended the call and dropped the phone onto the bed. I tilted my head back, staring up at the quiet ceiling of the bedroom.

For the first time since I had opened that folder hours ago, I felt like I was actually moving forward.

Not just hiding. Not just reacting to the horrific news. Not just sitting back and waiting for my father to tell me how the story ended.

I was going to pull back the curtain on who my stepmother really was. And then I was going to stand in that courtroom and make sure she paid for every single drop of blood she had stolen from my family.