Chapter 6 - What Adrian Left Behind
The memory card changed everything.
Nathan had recorded meetings.
Apparently betrayal made people paranoid.
One recording captured Victor Hale discussing Adrian’s death.
There was no ambiguity.
Adrian’s brakes had been sabotaged.
Nathan had arranged access to the vehicle.
Hale had paid him.
Stellan listened without moving.
When the recording ended, he walked into another room.
I followed.
He stood facing the Chicago skyline.
“I introduced them.”
“What?”
“Nathan and Adrian.”
His voice was empty.
“I trusted Nathan.”
“You didn’t kill your brother.”
“I put the man who did beside him.”
“That isn’t the same thing.”
“It feels exactly the same.”
I walked closer.
For once, Stellan did not look powerful.
He looked like a younger brother who had spent five years finding different ways to blame himself.
I touched his hand.
He turned.
The kiss happened so quietly that afterward I could not remember who moved first.
There was no dramatic collision.
No desperate grabbing.
Just his fingers against my jaw and my hand curling into his shirt.
Then his mouth touched mine.
Gentle.
Almost uncertain.
That surprised me more than anything.
Stellan Voss was uncertain about me.
When we separated, he rested his forehead against mine.
“I should have told you everything.”
“Yes.”
“I thought information made you vulnerable.”
“It does.”
He looked at me.
“But ignorance made me powerless.”
Something like understanding entered his face.
“I’m learning.”
“You’re thirty-seven.”
“Apparently slowly.”
I laughed.
And he kissed me again.
The next morning brought reality back.
Lillian arrived with Noah.
The reunion between Stellan and his nephew destroyed every defense I had left.
Noah looked like Adrian.
Even I could see it.
Stellan knelt in front of him.
Noah studied him solemnly.
“Mom says you’re Uncle Stellan.”
Stellan swallowed.
“She’s right.”
“Are you scary?”
Lillian covered her face.
I nearly laughed.
Stellan considered the question seriously.
“Sometimes.”
“To kids?”
“Never.”
Noah nodded.
“Okay.”
Then he hugged him.
Stellan closed his eyes.
Across the room, Lillian began crying.
So did I.
Hazel did not.
She simply announced, “Now I have a cousin.”
Nobody corrected her.
For several hours, we almost resembled a family.
Then Evelyn called.
Nathan had contacted federal prosecutors.
He was offering evidence against Hale in exchange for immunity.
“He’ll blame everything on Victor,” Stellan said.
“Will they believe him?” I asked.
“They might.”
Lillian shook her head.
“There’s something Nathan doesn’t know.”
She removed a small envelope.
Adrian had hidden original contracts inside a property he and Lillian purchased before her disappearance.
A lake house in Wisconsin.
The documents contained Nathan’s signature.
We left that afternoon.
The house had been abandoned for years.
The documents were exactly where Lillian remembered.
But so was Victor Hale.
He stood in the living room when we returned from the basement.
Two armed men beside him.
Nathan stood near the window.
My heart stopped.
Hale smiled.
“Family reunion.”
Stellan stepped in front of us.
“You’re finished, Victor.”
“People have been telling me that for thirty years.”
Hale looked at me.
“Josephine Mercer. The waitress who caused so much trouble.”
“I have that effect on billionaires.”
Stellan almost smiled.
Hale did not.
Nathan pointed his gun toward Lillian.
Stellan shifted.
Then Marcus stepped through the rear door.
Everyone turned.
Marcus was holding his phone.
Recording.
Nathan fired.
Stellan threw me down.
The room exploded into movement.
Security officers entered from outside.
Hale ran.
Nathan was tackled.
Marcus collapsed near the doorway, blood spreading across his shoulder.
He looked at me.
“Tell Hazel…”
“No.”
I pressed my hands against the wound.
“You tell her yourself.”
Sirens approached.
For once, they were coming for the right men.
But Victor Hale escaped.
And before disappearing into the woods, he looked back at Stellan.
May you like
The message in his eyes was unmistakable.
This was not finished.
