Chapter 6
Detective Reed ordered me not to enter the foundation building.
I went anyway.
Police surrounded the block while firefighters waited behind barricades.
Adrian had disabled the sprinkler system and chained the upper fire doors.
Smoke rolled from a broken window.
I wore a recording device beneath my shirt.
Marco objected until I reminded him Adrian had spent his life competing with me.
“He wants me to see him win.”
“He may want you dead,” Marco said.
“He has wanted that for years.”
I entered through the lobby carrying Sofia’s wooden box.
It was empty.
The real flash drive remained with Reed.
“Adrian!” I shouted.
His voice came through the emergency speakers.
“Twelfth floor.”
I climbed because he had shut down the elevators.
By the eighth floor, smoke burned my throat.
By the tenth, I could hear glass breaking above me.
I found Adrian inside the records room.
Small fires burned in metal trash cans, creating smoke without yet consuming the building.
He was staging a threat.
A gun hung loosely in his right hand.
Vivienne stood near the windows.
Her sapphire dress was gone.
She wore black pants and Sofia’s platinum ring on a chain around her neck.
“You came,” Adrian said.
“Where is the second device?”
Vivienne held out her hand.
“Give us the box.”
I placed it on a desk.
Adrian opened it.
His face changed when he found nothing inside.
“You think this is a game?”
“No. Games have rules.”
Vivienne stepped closer.
“Where is Sofia’s original drive?”
“With the police.”
“The financial files don’t matter,” Adrian said. “Richard can survive fraud charges.”
“But not murder.”
“You cannot prove who gave Sofia the medication.”
“I heard the recording.”
Vivienne glanced at Adrian.
“You said you found every recorder.”
“She lied to me,” he snapped.
“No,” I said. “Sofia outsmarted you.”
His gun lifted.
I forced myself not to move.
“What happened to my parents?”
Adrian smiled.
“My father told me you never knew.”
“Richard?”
“Our fathers were partners before yours decided he wanted clean hands.”
I stared at him.
“My father was involved in the trials.”
“He approved them,” Vivienne said. “Unlicensed treatments tested on poor children through charity clinics.”
Nausea rose in my throat.
“My mother discovered it.”
“She planned to expose everyone,” Adrian continued. “Richard arranged the crash. Your father died because he chose to confess with her.”
The words struck me harder than I expected.
My father had helped create the crime.
But he had died trying to stop it.
“Eleanor knew?”
“She knew enough to stay quiet.”
Vivienne touched the ring on her chain.
“Sofia’s mother kept the revised will and your mother’s records. Before she died, she passed them to Sofia.”
“So you killed Sofia for them.”
“We tried to persuade her,” Vivienne said.
“You held her down.”
“Richard told us the dose would only make her sleep.”
“You left her dying.”
Her eyes flickered.
For the first time, guilt touched her face.
Then Adrian laughed.
“She went from unconscious to dead faster than expected.”
I lunged before I could stop myself.
He struck me with the gun.
I fell against a desk as blood filled my mouth.
Vivienne grabbed his arm.
“Don’t kill him.”
“Why? You still hoping to marry him?”
“I’m hoping not to spend my life in prison.”
“You should have thought of that before Sofia.”
They were turning on each other.
I pushed myself upright.
“Adrian ordered the kidnapping,” I told Vivienne. “Richard will blame you for Sofia. They’ve already decided you’re disposable.”
“Shut up,” Adrian said.
“He took the jewelry box after the funeral. Why didn’t he give it to you?”
Vivienne looked at him.
“You said it was empty.”
“It was.”
“Eleanor said Adrian had it for days,” I continued. “He searched it before anyone else knew it existed.”
Adrian aimed at my chest.
“Stop talking.”
Vivienne moved away from him.
“What did you find?”
“Nothing.”
“You’re lying.”
“So are you,” he shouted. “You told me Rosie couldn’t be Damian’s.”
“I believed Sofia had falsified the test.”
“You knew.”
Their alliance broke in front of me.
I took one step toward the door.
Adrian fired.
The bullet struck the wall beside my head.
Police surged from the stairwell.
Marco had followed despite my order.
Adrian seized Vivienne and pressed the gun against her neck.
“Back away!”
Smoke thickened around us.
Vivienne screamed.
“You said we would leave together!”
“You were always the backup plan.”
Her face collapsed.
Adrian dragged her toward a service stairway.
Then Vivienne drove her heel into his foot and twisted free.
The gun discharged.
She fell.
Adrian ran.
I reached Vivienne as blood spread across her shoulder.
“Don’t let him leave me,” she gasped.
“You helped murder Sofia.”
“I didn’t know she would die.”
“You threatened her child.”
Tears cut through the soot on her face.
“I know where the second drive is.”
I stared at her.
“Tell me.”
“Save me first.”
Paramedics were already entering.
“You’re getting help.”
She grabbed my sleeve.
“The ring is the key.”
I pulled the chain from her neck.
“What does it open?”
“Sofia’s family mausoleum. There’s a compartment behind her mother’s name.”
Then her eyes widened.
“Adrian knows.”
I ran for the stairs.
Marco caught up as firefighters rushed past us.
Police had lost Adrian through a maintenance exit.
Sofia had been buried beside her mother in a small cemetery outside Oyster Bay.
We raced there through the rain.
Patrol cars approached from the opposite direction.
The mausoleum door stood open when we arrived.
Inside, stone nameplates lined the wall.
Sofia’s mother’s plaque had been removed.
Adrian was gone.
So was the hidden compartment’s contents.
But he had dropped one document.
I picked it up with gloved hands.
It was the first page of my mother’s revised will.
The paper named Sofia’s mother as custodian of evidence concerning Mercer Holdings.
At the bottom, my mother had added a handwritten sentence.
If my son Damian survives us, protect him from Richard Vale and from the Mercer who betrayed his own blood.
I read the line twice.
“The Mercer,” Marco said. “She didn’t mean Adrian.”
Adrian had been a child when my parents died.
There was only one adult Mercer close enough to betray them.
Eleanor.
My phone rang.
Aunt Eleanor’s number appeared.
When I answered, Adrian spoke.
“Your aunt finally wants to tell you the truth.”
May you like
I heard Eleanor crying in the background.
Then Adrian said, “Come to the place your parents died.”
