Chapter 1 - The Signature That Shouldn't ExistGus didn't come farther into the room.
That alone frightened me.
For twelve years, Gus Ferris had walked into rooms containing armed men, federal investigators, dying enemies, and furious business partners without so much as changing the rhythm of his breathing.
But now he stood in the doorway of Nell's hospital room holding a cream-colored envelope like it was a bomb.
“Boss,” he said again. “You need to see whose signature is on this.”
Nell's eyes moved from him to me.
June was still in my arms.
My daughter had fallen asleep after fifteen minutes of fighting it, one tiny fist curled against my chest while her mouth rested against the fabric of my shirt.
Six months old.
My child.
And I had known her for less than twenty-four hours.
“Give it to me.”
Gus crossed the room.
I shifted June carefully into the crook of one arm and accepted the envelope with the other.
The paper was water-stained from the wreck, but the contents inside had been protected by a clear document sleeve.
The first page was a letter.
I recognized the Mercer Holdings letterhead immediately.
Then I saw the date.
Seven months earlier.
One month before June was born.
My eyes moved over the words.
Mrs. Hart,
Mr. Mercer has been informed of your pregnancy and has decided that he does not wish to be involved in the life of the child. Enclosed you will find financial arrangements sufficient to cover medical expenses and future care. Mr. Mercer requests that there be no further communication regarding the pregnancy or child.
My jaw locked.
Nell was watching me.
There was no anger in her face anymore.
That would have been easier.
There was something worse.
Fear.
“Turn the page,” she whispered.
I did.
There was my name.
Roman James Mercer.
The signature beneath it looked exactly like mine.
Not similar.
Not close.
Mine.
I knew the way the R leaned forward. The sharp cut through the final r. The small upward hook I had developed when I was nineteen because my father had once told me a man's signature should look impossible to imitate.
Someone had imitated it perfectly.
Below my supposed signature was another line.
Witnessed by: Augustus Ferris.
I looked up.
Gus's face had gone hard.
“That isn't my signature,” he said.
Nell swallowed.
“You're sure?”
“I've signed thousands of documents for Roman.”
He stepped closer and pointed.
“The F is wrong. Mine loops inward. Whoever did this copied a signature from one of the old Mercer Holdings contracts.”
I stared at him.
“Which contracts?”
Gus hesitated.
“Internal ones.”
A cold sensation moved through me.
“How internal?”
“Board-level.”
The room became very quiet.
Outside the windows, afternoon rain streaked down the glass.
Inside, my daughter slept between people who were slowly realizing that her existence had been hidden by someone who knew far too much about my life.
Nell looked at me.
“I tried to tell you.”
The words nearly broke something inside me.
“When?”
“Eight months ago.”
My throat tightened.
She looked away toward the window.
“I found out after the divorce was final. I was almost eleven weeks pregnant.”
I closed my eyes.
Eleven weeks.
I had left her without knowing she was carrying our baby.
“I called your old number,” Nell continued. “Disconnected. I called the Mercer office. Your assistant said you weren't taking personal calls from me.”
“I never gave that order.”
“I know that now.”
The quiet way she said it hurt more than if she had screamed.
“I wrote you a letter. I sent a copy of the ultrasound.”
I opened my eyes.
“What ultrasound?”
Her face crumpled for half a second before she regained control.
“Our daughter at twelve weeks.”
I couldn't speak.
“I sent it by certified courier to your office. Three weeks later, this came back.”
She pointed toward the documents.
“With a cashier's check for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars.”
My hand tightened around the pages.
“I never touched the money,” she said. “I put it in an account because I didn't know whether refusing it would somehow create legal problems for June.”
“Nell—”
“Then another package arrived after she was born.”
My blood chilled.
“What package?”
“A document stating that you declined parental acknowledgment.”
Gus cursed softly.
I handed June to the nurse's bassinet and crossed to him.
“Find every package.”
“We recovered most of her belongings from the car. I'll have them brought up.”
“And every call she made to Mercer Holdings. Every employee who handled it. Every camera. Every courier receipt.”
“Already started.”
I turned back toward Nell.
She was staring at June.
“I hated you,” she said quietly.
I deserved the words.
“For months, Roman.”
“I know.”
“No. You don't.”
Her voice cracked.
“I was sick every morning. I was terrified. I went to appointments alone. The first time I heard her heartbeat, I cried in my car because there wasn't anyone sitting beside me.”
I couldn't move.
“I bought the crib alone. Painted the nursery alone. Had contractions alone until my neighbor drove me to the hospital.”
“Nell.”
“You don't get to say my name like that.”
I stopped.
She was crying now, silently.
“You made me believe you knew she existed and still didn't want her.”
“I didn't.”
“I know.”
That answer hurt worse somehow.
Because now there was nobody in that room she could properly hate.
Not yet.
I moved closer to her bed, but I didn't touch her.
“I will find the person who did this.”
She looked at me.
“That won't give you six months back.”
“No.”
“It won't give me my pregnancy back.”
“No.”
“And it won't undo the day you divorced me.”
I held her gaze.
“No.”
Something shifted in her face.
Maybe she had expected an excuse.
I had none.
I had divorced her because I thought leaving would keep her safe.
Instead, I had left her alone while someone else built a cage around her life.
“I thought I was protecting you,” I said.
Her laugh was broken.
“By making me believe you stopped loving me?”
“Yes.”
“That wasn't protection, Roman.”
I absorbed the blow.
She was right.
“You protected my body,” Nell whispered. “And destroyed everything else.”
Before I could answer, the door opened.
One of my security men entered.
He whispered something to Gus.
Gus's expression changed immediately.
“What?”
“There was a second witness to the crash,” he said. “A delivery driver. He saw one of the men who approached Nell's car.”
“And?”
“He identified him from a photograph.”
“Who?”
Gus looked toward Nell, then at me.
“Victor Salazar.”
I knew the name.
Victor had worked for Frank Calder for nearly ten years.
Frank Calder.
The same man whose threat had made me divorce my wife.
I felt the past fifteen months collapse into a single terrible possibility.
“He's still working for Calder?”
“We don't know.”
“Find out.”
Gus nodded.
Then the security man spoke again.
“Mr. Mercer, there's something else.”
I looked at him.
“The police recovered traffic-camera footage from three blocks before the collision.”
He handed Gus his phone.
Gus watched.
His face hardened.
Then he gave it to me.
The video was grainy.
Nell's silver sedan passed through an intersection at 8:42 p.m.
Twenty seconds later, the black SUV followed.
I zoomed in on the windshield.
A white parking tag hung beneath the mirror.
My stomach dropped.
I knew that tag.
Every executive vehicle in our private garage had one.
I enlarged the image until the writing became visible.
MERCER HOLDINGS — EXECUTIVE ACCESS.
Someone hadn't merely stolen my signature.
Someone inside my own organization had ordered an attack on the mother of my child.
And they had used one of my vehicles to do it.
Nell saw my face.
“What is it?”
I raised my eyes to hers.
“The people who tried to take June weren't just working for Calder.”
May you like
I looked at my sleeping daughter.
“They came from inside my family.”
Related Stories
