Chapter 7 - The House Where It Started
The old Mercer estate stood forty miles outside the city.
Drew had grown up there.
He had also spent twenty years trying to forget it.
They arrived after midnight.
Not alone.
Claire had agreed to Marcus’s instructions publicly while Drew’s security team followed at a distance.
Evelyn insisted on coming.
So did Vanessa.
Richard stayed with Lucy.
Rain swept across the estate.
The front door stood open.
Inside, a fire burned.
Marcus Mercer waited beside it.
Alive.
Older.
Scarred.
Smiling.
“Welcome home, Drew.”
Drew’s fists tightened.
“Where is Mrs. Alvarez?”
“Safe.”
Claire stepped forward.
“You threatened us.”
Marcus laughed.
“No.”
That stopped everyone.
“I watched you,” he admitted. “I investigated you. But I never cut Drew’s brakes.”
Evelyn stared.
“Then who did?”
Marcus looked at her.
“You still don’t know?”
He produced a flash drive.
“For five years I’ve been collecting proof.”
“Proof of what?” Drew asked.
“That someone inside Mercer Holdings stole hundreds of millions of dollars and needed you distracted.”
Marcus inserted the drive into a laptop.
Financial records appeared.
Shell corporations.
Transfers.
Forged signatures.
Claire didn’t understand all of it.
Drew did.
His face changed.
“These authorizations are my father’s.”
Marcus nodded.
“Forged.”
“By whom?”
Marcus opened another file.
Richard Carlisle’s name appeared.
Vanessa gasped.
“No.”
Marcus looked at her.
“Your father didn’t send Claire’s ring because someone instructed him.”
Vanessa shook her head.
“He said—”
“He sent it because he knew tonight was the last chance to force the truth into the open.”
Claire frowned.
“Then Richard is helping us?”
Marcus’s expression darkened.
“Now he is.”
“Why now?”
“Because the person he worked for has decided he knows too much.”
Drew’s phone rang.
Richard.
Drew answered.
But it wasn’t Richard’s voice.
It was Lucy’s.
“Drew?”
Drew went rigid.
“Lucy?”
A man spoke behind her.
“Come back to the hotel.”
Claire recognized the voice.
So did Evelyn.
Evelyn whispered one name.
“Charles.”
Drew’s father.
The man everyone believed was too sick to leave his private residence.
May you like
The man who had started the Mercer empire.
And apparently, the man behind everything.
