Chapter 4 - The Betrayal Inside the Mansion
The mansion went silent.
Liam stared at Daniel as though looking at a ghost.
“You’re dead.”
“I needed everyone to believe that.”
“For eighteen months?”
Daniel’s expression tightened.
“For eighteen months, I’ve been trying to find the person who arranged the attack.”
Liam tried to rise from the wheelchair.
I put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t.”
He ignored me.
“You let me believe you died.”
“If I came back, whoever betrayed us would disappear.”
“Sofia died!”
“I know.”
“You let Evan grow up believing his uncle was dead.”
Daniel’s voice cracked.
“I know.”
That stopped Liam.
Daniel looked older than the photograph.
Exhausted.
Haunted.
He explained everything in Liam’s study.
After the attack, Daniel had escaped the wreckage injured but alive. He realized almost immediately that the attackers had known their route, vehicle, departure time, and security rotation.
Only a few people possessed all four pieces of information.
Someone close to Liam had arranged it.
Daniel disappeared before the traitor knew he had survived.
He spent eighteen months following money.
Payments.
Shell corporations.
False names.
But he couldn’t get close enough to Liam without revealing himself.
“So you hired me?” I asked.
“I remembered you.”
“You could have contacted me normally.”
“Would you have agreed to live in a mafia boss’s house?”
“No.”
“That’s why I offered ten thousand dollars.”
I hated that his logic made sense.
Liam looked at him.
“Who killed Sofia?”
Daniel hesitated.
“I don’t know yet.”
Liam slammed his fist against the desk.
I jumped.
“You said—”
“I said the person responsible is inside this house.”
Daniel removed a small drive from his pocket.
“There are four possible people.”
Leo stood near the fireplace.
“Who?”
Daniel looked at him.
“You’re one.”
The room changed.
Leo’s expression remained controlled.
But Liam’s eyes went cold.
Daniel named the others.
Victor Hale, Liam’s financial manager.
Dr. Adrian Cross, the private physician who had supervised Liam’s recovery before I arrived.
And Margaret Vale, the estate administrator who had served the Mercer family for twenty-five years.
Four people.
Four trusted insiders.
One traitor.
Possibly more.
For the next two days, the mansion became a pressure cooker.
Nobody trusted anyone.
I focused on Liam.
His body was recovering.
His family was another matter.
Evan began visiting every afternoon.
At first, Liam barely knew how to speak to him.
“You got taller.”
Evan stared at him.
“That happens.”
I turned away to hide my smile.
The next afternoon, Evan brought a chessboard.
“Uncle Daniel says you cheat.”
“Your uncle lies.”
“Will you play?”
Liam hesitated.
Then nodded.
I watched something remarkable happen.
For thirty minutes, Liam Mercer stopped being a feared man surrounded by guards.
He became a father.
He smiled.
He teased.
He let Evan win and pretended he hadn’t.
When Evan left, Liam stared at the empty doorway.
“I wasted eighteen months.”
“You were afraid.”
“That doesn’t give me those months back.”
“No.”
I sat beside him.
“But you have tomorrow.”
He looked at me.
For a moment, neither of us spoke.
Then his hand covered mine.
No threat.
No command.
Just warmth.
“Why are you still here, Claire?”
I thought of Tommy.
“At first?”
“Yes.”
“Money.”
“And now?”
I looked toward the open blinds.
“I haven’t figured that out.”
That night, Daniel found the break he needed.
One of the shell companies that had funded the attack had also paid a private medical consultancy.
The owner?
Dr. Adrian Cross.
Leo immediately ordered Cross detained.
But his room was empty.
He had disappeared.
We found a note instead.
You’re looking at the wrong betrayal.
Below it was an address.
A storage facility outside Chicago.
Liam wanted to go.
Absolutely not.
“You can barely stand.”
“I’m going.”
“You have a fixation frame attached to your leg.”
“I have a wheelchair.”
“You also have the decision-making skills of a concussed raccoon.”
Daniel laughed.
Liam glared at him.
Eventually, Leo and Daniel went without us.
Three hours later, they returned carrying a locked metal case.
Inside were medical records.
Dozens of them.
One belonged to Liam.
Another belonged to Sofia.
And one belonged to Tommy Bennett.
My hands began shaking.
“No.”
I opened Tommy’s file.
Bloodwork.
Treatment records.
Trial eligibility.
Everything.
Someone had been monitoring my brother for months.
Then I found a handwritten note.
Bennett subject is compatible. Nurse can be leveraged if Mercer survives.
Liam read it over my shoulder.
His face changed.
“This was never only about me.”
My stomach turned.
“What does compatible mean?”
Daniel flipped through the remaining papers.
Then he stopped.
“Claire.”
“What?”
He handed me a laboratory report.
Tommy’s name appeared at the top.
Below it was a genetic marker.
Daniel looked at Liam.
Then at me.
“Someone has been using your brother’s illness to get access to this family.”
I swallowed.
“Why?”
Daniel opened another file.
Inside was a photograph.
Tommy.
Standing beside a man I had never seen.
On the back, someone had written:
He doesn’t know who his father is.
And beneath it:
May you like
Neither does Claire.
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