Chapter 5 - The Man Everyone Trusted
Richard denied everything.
Vanessa defended him.
Drew believed neither accusation nor denial without proof.
That was how the investigation began.
By midnight, the gala was over.
Guests were sent home.
Claire wanted to leave too.
Drew refused.
“Someone arranged for you to be here.”
“That doesn’t mean—”
“It means you and Lucy are not walking out alone.”
Claire stared at him.
“You don’t get to control my life because you learned the truth tonight.”
His expression softened.
“You’re right.”
That surprised her.
“But I’m asking you to stay because someone has been watching you.”
Claire looked toward Lucy, asleep on a sofa in a private hotel suite.
That ended the argument.
Drew’s security team began reconstructing the breach.
Richard’s credentials had been used, but from a terminal located inside Mercer Tower.
A terminal belonging to the executive floor.
Vanessa paced.
“My father wouldn’t do this.”
Claire watched her.
Hours earlier, she had assumed Vanessa would be her enemy.
But Vanessa seemed genuinely frightened.
Drew asked Richard about the ring.
Richard admitted receiving it by courier.
Security recovered the envelope.
No fingerprints.
Then Claire noticed something.
The handwriting.
Not on the envelope.
On the courier receipt.
A single initial.
M.
Claire had seen that handwriting before.
On Christmas cards.
On birthday envelopes.
On a threatening note five years ago.
She looked at Evelyn.
“Who is Marcus?”
Drew froze.
“My uncle.”
Evelyn closed her eyes.
Marcus Mercer.
Drew’s father’s younger brother.
A man who had supposedly died four years earlier.
Claire stared at them.
“Supposedly?”
Drew explained.
Marcus’s boat had exploded off the coast of Maine.
No body was recovered.
He had been declared dead.
Evelyn sat down slowly.
“He hated your father.”
Drew nodded.
“He hated me more.”
Why?
Because Drew had inherited voting control that Marcus believed belonged to him.
Suddenly the old threats made sense.
Claire had not been targeted because she was unworthy of Drew.
She had been targeted because she made Drew vulnerable.
And then a thought struck her.
“If Marcus wanted Drew dead, why force me to disappear?”
Evelyn looked at her.
“Maybe the person threatening you didn’t want Drew dead.”
Drew frowned.
“What?”
“Maybe they wanted him isolated.”
Claire felt cold.
Remove his wife.
Break him emotionally.
Bring him back into the Mercer family.
Control him.
Drew looked toward Richard.
“Who benefited when I returned?”
Nobody answered.
Because the answer was obvious.
Mercer Holdings.
And the person who gained the most power from Drew’s return had not been Marcus.
It had been Evelyn.
Drew turned toward his aunt.
May you like
She stared back at him.
And for the first time, Claire wondered whether the woman who had saved Drew’s life had also destroyed theirs.
