All Chapters of THE UNDERESTIMATED BILLIONAIRE TYCOON : Chapter 61
- Chapter 70
73 chapters
SAVE YOUR SON
Blake couldn't stop staring at the ultrasound.Twelve weeks. The image showed a tiny form, barely human, floating in darkness. His son. Conceived during the final months of his marriage to Lillian when everything was already poisoned.Emma found him in his office at three AM, still holding the photo."You haven't slept," she said."Can't." Blake looked up at her. "Emma, I have a son. Somewhere. Being raised to hate me."Emma sat beside him, took the photo, studied it. "When would Lillian have gotten pregnant? You were separated for months before the divorce."Blake did the math. "Final attempt at reconciliation. About four months before I filed. We tried one last time. It was—" He stopped. "It was terrible. Mechanical. We both knew it was over. I moved out the next day.""And she found out she was pregnant after.""Must have. She never told me. Never used it as leverage during the divorce." Blake's hands clenched. "She wanted me completely cut out. Wanted our son to never know his fat
MONSTERS COULD CHANGE
James was smaller than Blake expected.Two years old but looked closer to one. Pale skin stretched over delicate bones. Tubes ran from his tiny arms to machines that beeped with mechanical precision. His breathing was shallow, labored, each breath visible in the rise and fall of his small chest.Blake stood frozen in the doorway, staring at his son.Rachel sat beside the hospital bed, holding James's hand, dark circles under her eyes speaking to nights without sleep."Mr. Sterling." The surgeon approached, chart in hand. "I'm Dr. Williams. James has a congenital heart condition—ventricular septal defect. There's a hole in his heart that's been getting worse. He needs surgery immediately. Open heart. Six to eight hours."Blake's throat closed. "And the transfusion?""He lost blood during preliminary procedures. We need to replenish before surgery. Your blood type matches perfectly. We can begin immediately if you consent.""Yes. Whatever he needs. Take it all if necessary."Dr. William
HE HAS TO FIGHT
Blake confronted Rachel the next day, voice carefully controlled."Madam Mary visited James. How many times?"Rachel couldn't meet his eyes. "Five. Maybe six. Before she died. The prison allowed supervised visits because she was listed as maternal grandmother.""And you let her." Not an accusation. Statement of fact."I thought—" Rachel's voice broke. "She seemed harmless. Just an old woman who wanted to see her grandson. I didn't know she was filling his head with poison about you."Blake closed his eyes. Five or six visits. Months of exposure. A two-year-old's mind was malleable, impressionable. Madam Mary had planted seeds of hatred that would take years to uproot."What did she tell him?""That you were dangerous. That you'd hurt his mother. That you couldn't be trusted." Rachel was crying now. "I didn't realize she was manipulating him. I thought she was just sharing memories of Lillian."Blake wanted to be angry. Wanted to rage at Rachel for allowing it. But she'd been manipulat
STAND DOWN
Emma read the letter twice before speaking."Your uncle. The one who died in the warehouse.""Apparently didn't die." Blake was already pulling up files, old newspaper clippings, anything he could find about James Sterling Sr.'s supposed death. "He's been alive for twenty-three years. Hiding.""Why reveal himself now?"Blake felt something cold settle in his chest. "Robert's funeral was last week. James waited until his brother was dead to come out of hiding.""Coward," Emma said. Voice hard.Blake kept reading. The warehouse incident twenty-three years ago. James Sterling Sr. caught in crossfire during an arms deal. Body never recovered. Assumed dead.Sam arrived within the hour, already pulling intelligence."James Sterling Sr. didn't die. He faked it." Sam pulled up records, passport photos, financial transactions. "After the warehouse, he disappeared. Showed up in Poland six months later under the name Jacob Stone. Been operating in Eastern Europe ever since.""Doing what?""Worse
I DESTROY EVERYTHING I TOUCH
"Let's talk," Blake said to James Sr. "You said you wanted to discuss terms.""There are no terms. Just demands." James Sr. gestured at the boy. "You sign over Sterling Industries. All of it. Or I kill your son right here.""You kill him, you lose your leverage. Then my people kill you."James Sr. laughed. "You think I care about dying? I've been dead for twenty-three years. This is just cleanup."Blake studied his uncle. Saw the truth there. James Sr. wasn't bluffing. He'd burn everything down, himself included, just to hurt the Sterling family."What did Robert do?" Blake asked. "Really. What happened in that warehouse?"James Sr.'s expression shifted. Old wounds opening. "We had a deal. Weapons. High-grade military hardware. Buyers were waiting. Money was astronomical. But Robert found out. Called the feds. Set up a sting operation.""To stop you from arming criminals.""To destroy me!" James Sr.'s voice climbed. "I was his brother! Family! And he chose strangers over me! Chose his
THERE'S SOMETHING YOU NEED TO KNOW
Blake stopped speaking on day four.The doctors said it was trauma response. Psychological shutdown. He'd answer direct medical questions with nods or head shakes but otherwise stayed silent.Emma sat beside his bed, holding his hand, talking to fill the void. Telling him about the kids. About Sterling Industries. About the funerals for the three victims.Blake stared at nothing and said nothing.Rachel's funeral was the worst. Small service. Few attendees. Young James stood beside Emma, too young to fully understand his guardian was gone. He kept asking when Rachel was coming back.Blake watched from his hospital bed via video call. Saw the tiny casket. Heard the pastor's words about tragic accidents and God's plans.Knew it was his fault.Emma tried everything. Brought the children to visit. Let them crawl on Blake's bed, careful of his injuries. Grace drew pictures. Baby Robert babbled and grabbed Blake's fingers.Blake smiled when they were there. Hollow performance. As soon as th
ONE MORE TO PROTECT
Blake found his mother's letter in the safety deposit box she'd left him.Years old. Sealed with wax. Instructions typed on the envelope: Open only when you question who you are.He'd questioned that every day since the explosion.The seal broke easily. Inside, pages of handwriting. His mother's precise script. Blake settled into his office chair, leg still in a brace from the building collapse, and started reading.My dearest Blake,If you're reading this, you've reached a point where the Sterling name feels more like curse than blessing. Where you wonder if our family's wealth is built on bones.You're right to wonder.I discovered the truth about the Sterling fortune fifteen years ago. Your father didn't want me to know. But I hired investigators. Followed the money back through generations.What I found destroyed my faith in everything.Blake's hands trembled. He kept reading.The Sterling fortune wasn't built on innovation or hard work. It was built on blood. Three generations of
WHO'S TRYING TO KILL ME?
Blake stared at his mother's final revelation until the words blurred.Diana. His half-sister. A daughter his mother gave up forty-five years ago. A Sterling who didn't know she was a Sterling.Emma found him still holding the letter an hour later."Blake? What's wrong?"He showed her the letter. Watched her read it. Watched her expression shift from confusion to shock."Your mother had another child," Emma said quietly."A daughter. Diana. She's out there somewhere. Doesn't know who she is. And according to my mother, she's in danger.""Then we find her." Emma's voice was certain. "We find her and we protect her."Blake hired investigators that afternoon. The best money could buy. Gave them everything from his mother's letter—Diana's birth name, approximate age, the adoption agency.The search took three weeks.Sam walked into Blake's office carrying a file. "Found her."Blake's hands trembled taking the folder. Opened it.Diana Martinez. Forty-five years old. Cardiologist practicing
YOU HAVE WHAT I WANT
Diana Gate stood in the center of Blake's study, arms crossed, jaw set. "I don't know anything about any evidence. I met Grace Sterling exactly once—in a hospital room two days before she died. We barely spoke."Blake studied his newly discovered half-sister. She had their mother's eyes, the same determined set to her shoulders. "The people who attacked you believe otherwise.""Then they're idiots." Diana's voice was sharp, clinical. Years as a surgeon had taught her to cut away emotion when necessary. "I was sedated most of that visit. Hospital policy after my car accident. I don't even remember what Grace looked like clearly."Sam entered the study with a tablet, his expression grim. "We interrogated the attackers. Their leader is Nikolai Volkov—Dimitri's nephew, third generation of that family's vendetta against the Sterlings."Blake's hands clenched. Another Volkov. Would this family's hatred never end?"Nikolai claims you were alone with Grace for seventeen minutes," Sam continue
LET'S DESTROY THEM TOGETHER
Blake's phone buzzed thirty seconds later. A video file.He pressed play with hands that had stopped shaking years ago—trained himself not to shake, not to show weakness. But watching his seven-year-old son bound to a chair in a concrete room, tears streaming down his face, Blake's carefully constructed control cracked."Daddy?" James's voice was small, terrified. "Daddy, where are you?"The camera shifted. Nikolai Volkov stepped into frame, placed a hand on James's shoulder. The boy flinched."Six hours," Nikolai said to the camera. "Abandoned subway tunnel beneath Morrison Street. Come alone with the USB drive, or I mail you pieces of your son." The video cut to black.Emma grabbed the phone from Blake's hand, watched it again, then screamed. It was a sound Blake had never heard from her—primal, maternal, the cry of a woman whose child had been stolen."We get him back," she said, her voice breaking. "Whatever it takes. Whatever he wants. We give it to him."Blake pulled her close.