Chapter 4 - The Man Wearing My Brother’s Name
I stopped hearing the room.
There was only the man standing in front of me.
The face I had called Gabriel.
The eyes I remembered from childhood.
The scar above his eyebrow from when he fell through the greenhouse roof at sixteen.
The exact way he tilted his head when he thought I was being stubborn.
Everything looked right.
Everything felt wrong.
“You’re not Gabriel?”
He placed the gun on the table.
“No.”
My knees weakened.
Dr. Shaw moved toward me.
I pushed her hand away.
“Who are you?”
The man took a slow breath.
“My name is Michael Mercer.”
Adrian’s entire body went rigid.
“Mercer?”
Vivian’s surname.
My mind caught up.
“Vivian.”
Michael nodded.
“She’s my sister.”
I stared.
“The federal prosecutor who disappeared—”
“Was our father.”
Daniel Mercer.
Vivian Mercer.
Michael Mercer.
The pieces collided.
“You pretended to be my brother.”
“Yes.”
“For three years?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Gabriel asked me to.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“Convenient.”
Michael ignored him.
“Your brother found me six years ago. We were investigating the same network from different directions.”
“Where is he?”
Michael’s eyes changed.
“I don’t know.”
“You just admitted Adrian’s body is real.”
“I admitted the body exists. It isn’t Gabriel.”
Adrian stepped forward.
“Forensics matched dental records.”
“Records supplied by DeLuca family physicians.”
“DNA.”
“Contaminated.”
Adrian’s jaw tightened.
“You expect her to believe that?”
“No.” Michael looked at me. “I expect her to verify everything.”
At least he had learned the right answer.
I wrapped both arms around my belly.
“Why take his face?”
Dr. Shaw inhaled sharply.
I looked at her.
She had noticed what I hadn’t wanted to say aloud.
This man didn’t merely resemble Gabriel.
He looked almost exactly like him.
Michael touched the edge of his jaw.
“Reconstructive surgery.”
I felt sick.
“Voluntary?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“To draw out whoever tried to kill him.”
“Did it work?”
“No.”
“Then where is my brother?”
Michael looked toward Adrian.
“Ask him.”
Adrian’s face went cold.
“I didn’t touch Gabriel.”
“You hunted him across three states.”
“Because he stole from me.”
“He stole evidence.”
“He stole eight million dollars.”
Michael shrugged.
“Evidence can be expensive.”
This was madness.
My stomach tightened suddenly.
I froze.
Dr. Shaw noticed immediately.
“Contraction?”
“I don’t know.”
She checked the time.
“Sit down.”
“I’m fine.”
“Elena.”
Another tightening spread across my abdomen.
Not pain exactly.
Pressure.
Dr. Shaw became all business.
“Sit.”
I obeyed.
Adrian moved toward me.
Michael blocked him.
“Don’t.”
Adrian’s eyes became lethal.
“She’s my wife.”
“She left you.”
“She is carrying my child.”
“And someone in your house poisoned her.”
Adrian hit him.
Fast.
Michael staggered backward.
Dr. Shaw shouted.
I stood.
“Stop!”
Michael wiped blood from his lip.
Then he smiled.
“Oh, I’ve been waiting years for that.”
He swung.
Adrian ducked.
The two men crashed into a chair.
“Are you both insane?”
Apparently yes.
I grabbed the glass water pitcher and threw it against the wall.
It shattered.
They stopped.
Good.
“Next one goes at somebody’s head.”
Michael straightened his shirt.
Adrian touched his split lip.
Neither looked embarrassed enough.
Dr. Shaw checked my pulse.
“Stress is the last thing you need.”
“Then I chose the wrong family.”
Adrian looked at me.
“Elena, come with me.”
“No.”
“This location is compromised.”
“Because you found it.”
“So did your doctor.”
“Because someone sent her here.”
“Yes.”
“Was it you?”
“No.”
“Vivian?”
“I don’t know.”
Michael gave a humorless laugh.
“Your mistress seems to be doing a lot you don’t know about.”
Adrian turned on him.
“Vivian isn’t my—”
He stopped.
I stared.
“Finish that sentence.”
He looked at me.
For the first time, Adrian Romano seemed unsure what truth would damage him least.
Michael leaned against the counter.
“This should be good.”
“Get out,” Adrian said.
“No.”
I pointed at Adrian.
“Talk.”
He looked at Dr. Shaw.
“This doesn’t concern you.”
She folded her arms.
“Your wife has been exposed to an unknown amount of a dangerous compound. Until I know she’s medically stable, everything concerns me.”
I almost hugged her.
Adrian sighed.
Then he looked at me.
“Vivian and I were involved.”
“I’m aware.”
“It ended.”
“Interesting. Did it end before or after she appeared in my house wearing your sweater?”
His mouth tightened.
“The relationship ended four years ago.”
Silence.
I searched his face.
“What?”
“I continued letting people believe it hadn’t.”
“Why?”
“Because Vivian’s position beside me gave her access to people we were investigating.”
Michael’s expression changed.
“Investigating?”
Adrian ignored him.
“Her father disappeared because he discovered the financial network that became Verona. Vivian came to me years later because she believed my father was responsible.”
“Was he?”
“Yes.”
The room went still.
Adrian had said it without hesitation.
“Your father killed Daniel Mercer?”
“I believe he ordered it.”
Michael moved away from the counter.
“You believe?”
“I found partial records after Vittorio died.”
“Where?”
“Hidden beneath accounts my father left me.”
Michael stepped closer.
“You had evidence about my father and said nothing?”
“I had numbers and coded payments. Not proof.”
“You could have come to us.”
“Your sister did.”
Michael stared at him.
Adrian continued.
“Vivian and I built Verona as a trap.”
My head spun.
“You built the company?”
“We took over the shell structure that already existed. Redirected transactions. Created fake opportunities.”
“You’re saying Verona is some secret investigation?”
“Partly.”
“Partly?”
His eyes met mine.
“Some of the money is real.”
Of course.
“Criminal money?”
“Yes.”
Dr. Shaw muttered something under her breath that sounded like a prayer.
I felt suddenly exhausted.
“So you’ve been sleeping with Vivian as part of an investigation?”
“No.”
“But you slept with her.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
His silence answered.
“Adrian.”
“Two years.”
My chest hurt.
“While we were married?”
“Yes.”
There it was.
No heroic explanation could erase that.
He stepped toward me.
“I won’t insult you by pretending it was justified.”
“Good.”
“I ended it.”
“And kept her close.”
“Yes.”
“Let her believe she mattered.”
“She does matter.”
I laughed once.
Painfully.
“Remarkable choice of words.”
“Not like that.”
“It doesn’t matter anymore.”
His face changed.
It mattered to him.
That surprised me.
I turned to Michael.
“Why did my mother warn Dad not to trust Gabriel?”
“I don’t know.”
“You’ve had six years with him and never asked?”
“I asked every time he mentioned that night.”
“And?”
“He always said your mother had discovered something about him shortly before she died.”
“What?”
“He wouldn’t tell me.”
“Again—where is my brother?”
Michael hesitated.
“The last message I received from Gabriel was eighteen months ago.”
My anger rose.
“You said you didn’t know where he was.”
“I don’t.”
“What did the message say?”
Michael pulled a chain from beneath his shirt.
A small metal key hung from it.
“He told me if Elena ever left Adrian voluntarily, give her this.”
I stared at the key.
“Why?”
“He said you would know what it opens.”
I took it.
Old brass.
Small.
A faint engraving on one side.
M.D.
Maria DeLuca.
My mother.
I knew exactly what it opened.
“No.”
Adrian watched me.
“What?”
“My mother’s writing desk.”
The desk had remained locked since her death.
My father kept it in the library at the DeLuca estate.
No one touched it.
Not even the staff.
The sentence from Mom’s letter returned.
I have hidden the original ledger where only Elena will eventually think to look.
Not in the desk.
Too obvious.
But the key was a message.
“Where did she keep that desk before Dad moved it to the library?”
I whispered the question mostly to myself.
Then I remembered.
My childhood bedroom.
For years.
Mom used to sit there while I fell asleep.
I saw it in my mind.
The old desk beside the window.
The loose floorboard beneath it that creaked every winter.
“Oh my God.”
Michael saw my expression.
“You know.”
“I think so.”
Adrian shook his head.
“We’re not going to the DeLuca estate.”
I almost admired the certainty.
“Yes, we are.”
“Federal agents raided my house forty minutes ago. Whoever triggered that raid knows Elena has the files. Her father’s estate will be watched.”
Michael picked up his gun.
“For once, I agree with him.”
I looked at both men.
“My mother died for whatever she found. My brother disappeared because of it. Someone has been poisoning my unborn child.”
I closed my fist around the key.
“I am done running away from answers.”
Adrian stared at me.
Then he nodded once.
“Fine.”
Michael frowned.
“That easy?”
“No.”
Adrian looked at him.
“But if she’s going, I’m going first.”
My phone vibrated.
The second phone.
The one no one should have known about.
A video message appeared.
I pressed play.
My father filled the screen.
Salvatore DeLuca was sitting in his library.
Behind him, flames climbed the curtains.
His face was bleeding.
He looked directly into the camera.
“Elena, if you receive this, do not come home.”
A shadow moved behind him.
My father turned.
Someone struck him.
The phone fell sideways.
Before the video ended, I saw a pair of women’s shoes cross the carpet.
Red heels.
I knew those shoes.
May you like
I had seen them less than an hour earlier.
On Vivian.
