Chapter 4 - The Empire Started Turning Against Me
The Mercer board meeting lasted eleven minutes.
Victor had prepared everything.
Eleven directors.
Seven votes against me.
Three abstentions.
One missing.
Mine.
I wasn't there.
I was standing beside my children's beds.
The irony wasn't lost on me.
At the same time I was losing an empire, my son was learning to walk again.
Jonah took six steps before collapsing onto the carpet.
Blythe clapped.
“Again!”
He laughed.
Dr. Yates smiled.
“That's progress.”
I stared at Elena.
“Can you believe it?”
She smiled.
“I told you not to waste hope.”
Then Prescott entered.
“We have a problem.”
“What?”
“Mercer Holdings stock dropped eighteen percent.”
“Why?”
“Victor announced an internal restructuring.”
I almost laughed.
“Let him have it.”
Prescott looked surprised.
“Sir?”
“Let him.”
I finally understood something.
The company wasn't my life.
My children were.
If the empire burned while they lived, so be it.
But Victor wasn't satisfied.
He attacked the family trust.
He froze accounts.
He filed lawsuits claiming the twins needed to remain under “professional medical supervision.”
It was a legal attempt to take custody.
That was the moment I stopped being passive.
I hired independent attorneys.
Not Mercer lawyers.
People who had never worked for me.
Elena helped uncover more laboratory documents.
Among them was a shocking discovery.
M-17 had never been designed to kill the children.
It had been designed to make them dependent on a patented treatment.
Victor intended to release the disease globally.
Then sell the cure.
My children were proof of concept.
The real target was bigger than Mercer Holdings.
He wanted control of a medical market worth billions.
We brought the evidence to federal investigators.
But the investigators wanted one thing.
A witness.
Someone who could testify that Victor ordered the experiments.
Someone who could connect him directly to Genevieve's murder.
Elena had seen him.
She had heard him.
But she was terrified.
“I can't do this,” she said.
“You can.”
“If I testify, he'll come after me.”
“He already has.”
“I know.”
I took her hand.
“I won't let him hurt you.”
She looked at me.
“You can't promise that.”
“No.”
I squeezed her fingers.
“But I can promise I won't run.”
That night, someone broke into the estate.
The alarm sounded at 1:11.
Prescott's team caught two men.
A third escaped.
They found the twins' room unlocked.
My heart stopped.
I ran upstairs.
Blythe was missing.
“BLYTHE!”
The scream came out of me before I realized it.
I searched every room.
Then Elena shouted from the hallway.
“Lawson!”
She stood outside the old library.
Blythe was hiding behind a curtain.
She had heard the alarm and wandered out of bed.
I grabbed her.
She clung to me.
“I wanted Mommy.”
I closed my eyes.
“You scared Daddy.”
“Sorry.”
“You're okay.”
She looked at Elena.
“Did you promise Daddy you would help us?”
Elena smiled.
“Yes.”
Blythe nodded.
“Good.”
Then she whispered something.
“Mommy said Elena was brave.”
Elena's eyes filled with tears.
The next day we learned why Genevieve had trusted Elena.
Her mother had kept a handwritten journal.
A secret journal.
It contained names.
Dates.
Research notes.
And one sentence repeated on nearly every page.
TRUST ELENA.
I didn't understand why until the final entry.
If Lawson ever finds this, tell him I wasn't killed because I was his wife.
I was killed because I found out who his uncle planned to make him become.
I stared at the sentence.
“What does that mean?”
Elena looked at me.
“Your wife knew Victor wanted you to inherit more than money.”
“His company.”
“More than that.”
She pointed to another page.
Genevieve had discovered Victor planned to force me into cooperating through the children.
He knew my weakness.
He believed if he threatened Jonah and Blythe, I'd become his instrument.
Instead, Genevieve died protecting them.
The journal ended with a final line.
If I can't stop him, Lawson must choose his children over my family name.
I closed the book.
“I already chose.”
Elena smiled.
“Yes.”
That evening, I signed away controlling interest in Mercer Holdings.
Not to Victor.
To a blind trust.
I announced publicly that every Mercer Biogen facility would be transferred to an independent foundation.
The medical patents surrounding M-17 would be released for humanitarian research.
The company would no longer profit from them.
Victor's empire collapsed within forty-eight hours.
But he disappeared before authorities could arrest him.
And the same night he vanished, Elena received a message.
YOU SHOULD HAVE LEFT HIM ALONE.
She stared at the screen.
Then handed me the phone.
I looked at the message.
“I think he knows where we live.”
Prescott immediately increased security.
But Elena shook her head.
“No.”
“What?”
“He doesn't want us dead.”
May you like
She looked terrified.
“He wants us to find something.”
