Chapter 5 - The Family SecretMalcolm talked for four hours.
By the time he finished, I understood that my uncle had spent nearly two years constructing a trap around my life.
The divorce hadn't been the endgame.
It had been the first move.
Silas knew my grandfather's trust better than anyone alive.
If I remained married and had a child, Nell and I would automatically become joint guardians of the Mercer family trusts connected to that child.
But if we divorced, control could become complicated.
Especially if one parent supposedly renounced involvement.
Especially if the other parent died.
Or disappeared.
Silas had created documents making it appear that I had voluntarily rejected my daughter.
Then he'd prepared guardianship paperwork naming himself as the nearest suitable Mercer relative if anything happened to Nell.
The crash had been designed to make that happen.
“They weren't supposed to kill her,” Malcolm said.
We were inside one of my private offices now.
Nell had been transferred the following morning to a secured rehabilitation suite ten miles away.
June was with her.
I wanted them nowhere near this conversation.
“What were they supposed to do?”
“Take June after the collision.”
“And Nell?”
Malcolm looked sick.
“Silas expected her injuries to be severe enough that she couldn't interfere.”
The thought of Nell trapped inside twisted metal while men approached my daughter made my vision darken.
Gus saw it.
“Boss.”
I forced myself back into the room.
“Why didn't they take June?”
“The truck driver.”
Malcolm nodded.
“They panicked.”
“And now Silas knows I know.”
“Yes.”
“Where is he?”
“I don't know.”
I stood.
Malcolm grabbed my sleeve.
“Roman.”
I looked down.
“He has people you trust.”
“Names.”
“I don't know them all.”
“Give me the ones you know.”
He did.
Two executives.
One security contractor.
One accountant.
A board member.
Then he hesitated.
“And?”
“There is someone else.”
“Who?”
“He never told me the name.”
“How do you know?”
“Because Silas said he had someone close enough to you to know when you slept.”
Gus and I exchanged a look.
That reduced the list considerably.
That evening, I returned to Nell.
She was sitting in a wheelchair beside the window.
June was on her lap, furiously attacking a stuffed rabbit.
Nell looked exhausted.
Beautiful.
Alive.
All the things I'd spent fifteen months trying not to miss.
“You found something.”
I closed the door.
“Yes.”
“Tell me everything.”
So I did.
No editing.
No protecting.
No deciding which truths she could handle.
When I finished, Nell sat silently for almost a minute.
Then she looked down at June.
“My daughter owns two billion dollars?”
“Technically several trusts collectively control assets in that range.”
“Roman.”
“Yes.”
“She's chewing a rabbit.”
June bit the rabbit's ear harder.
“I noticed.”
“She can't say Mama.”
“I know.”
“And some lunatic thinks she should be involved in corporate voting rights?”
“Apparently.”
Nell covered her eyes.
I almost smiled.
Then she lowered her hands.
“What's the plan?”
“You and June leave Miami tonight.”
“No.”
“Nell.”
Her expression sharpened.
“You promised.”
“This is different.”
“It always is with you.”
“Silas has somebody close to me.”
“Which is exactly why hiding me wherever you decide isn't automatically safer.”
I stopped.
She had a point.
I hated that she had a point.
“What do you suggest?”
Her eyebrows rose slightly.
That question mattered.
Maybe more than I understood.
“You're asking me?”
“Yes.”
“Actually asking?”
“Yes, Nell.”
She considered.
“I want access to everything.”
“What?”
“The fake letters. Trust documents. Security records. Everything involving me or June.”
“Done.”
“I want my own attorney.”
“Done.”
“Not one you choose.”
I almost objected.
Then I remembered my promise.
“Done.”
“And if we're moved somewhere, I decide whether the location works for June.”
“Yes.”
She stared at me.
“You're terrible at this.”
“At what?”
“Not controlling everything.”
“I've been doing it for twelve seconds.”
“Exactly.”
June suddenly dropped the rabbit.
I bent to pick it up.
Something hard struck my thumb.
I frowned.
“What?”
I squeezed the rabbit's stomach.
There was something inside.
Not stuffing.
I looked at Nell.
“Did you buy this?”
“No.”
“Who did?”
“I thought you did.”
My blood froze.
The rabbit had appeared with June's belongings after the crash.
Gus arrived five minutes later with a security technician.
They opened the seam carefully.
Inside was a black device smaller than my thumbnail.
A tracker.
Nell went pale.
“How long has that been there?”
The technician examined it.
“Battery model like this? Could be weeks.”
Weeks.
Someone had known where Nell and June were before the crash.
Every grocery store.
Every doctor's appointment.
Every night at home.
I turned toward Gus.
“Trace it.”
“It may transmit through a private network.”
“Trace it anyway.”
Forty minutes later, he returned.
“We got a partial handshake.”
“Where?”
He handed me the screen.
The tracker had connected repeatedly to a receiver.
Not Silas's mansion.
Not Mercer Holdings.
A residential address in Key Biscayne.
I knew the house.
Everyone in my inner circle knew it.
It belonged to Gus Ferris.
The man standing beside me.
Nell looked at him.
I looked at him.
Gus's face emptied.
“I have never seen that device in my life.”
I believed him.
At least, I wanted to.
Then his phone rang.
Gus answered.
A woman's voice screamed loudly enough that I heard it from three feet away.
His face went white.
“Who is this?”
The caller said something.
Gus stopped breathing.
Then the line disconnected.
“What happened?” I asked.
He looked at me.
“My sister.”
“What about her?”
His voice broke.
“They have her.”
May you like
The tracker inside June's toy had led us to Gus's house.
And now someone had taken the one person in the world he loved enough to betray me for.
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