Chapter 4 - THE WOMAN WHO KNEW TOO MUCH
Eli spent the next hour telling me everything he remembered about the hospital.
Not much.
He'd been too young to understand the adults around him, but he remembered a woman crying outside a room with blue curtains. He remembered our father carrying him through a parking garage at night. And he remembered a man in a gray coat telling Daniel Vaughn that some people would pay a fortune to know where the baby had gone.
"Why didn't you tell me any of this?" I asked.
"Because I thought it was a nightmare."
He rubbed his hands together.
"I was little. Dad told me never to repeat it. When I asked him about it years later, he said he'd explain when I was older."
"And then he died."
Eli nodded.
I wanted to be angry, but beneath the anger was something worse: the realization that my father had carried this burden alone while I believed I knew everything about him.
I called Roman.
He answered immediately.
"What's happened?"
I told him about Vanessa Reed, the birth certificate, and Eli's memories.
He didn't interrupt.
When I finished, he asked one question.
"Did Vanessa give you anything else?"
"No."
"Stay where you are. I'm sending Adrian."
"Don't send anyone into my apartment."
"Tessa—"
"I mean it. I'm not handing my brother over to your people."
A pause.
"Then I'll meet you somewhere public. You choose the place."
We agreed to meet at a coffee shop near the lake.
Before leaving, I locked the envelope in my bag and told Eli to remain home. He protested until I promised to call him every fifteen minutes.
Roman was already seated when I arrived. He'd chosen a table near the window, away from the other customers.
"Vanessa Reed isn't an ordinary attorney," he said.
"Apparently, neither is my father."
Roman's expression tightened.
"She worked for a foundation connected to my family twenty years ago. The foundation arranged private medical care, emergency relocation, and legal assistance for people caught in situations they couldn't escape."
"That sounds suspiciously generous."
"It was created by my mother."
I waited.
Roman looked toward the street.
"She believed money was only useful if it could keep someone from being destroyed by circumstances they didn't choose. After she died, the foundation was absorbed into my business. Some of its records disappeared."
"And you think Eli is connected to it?"
"I think someone has spent twenty years making sure we never find out."
I pulled out the photocopied birth certificate.
"Can you verify this?"
"Not without the original court file."
"Then get it."
"I'm working on it."
I leaned forward.
"Roman, I need you to understand something. I am not going to let you turn my brother into a pawn in whatever war you're fighting."
His eyes met mine.
"Neither am I."
"Then tell me what you know about my father."
He took a long breath.
"Daniel was one of the few people who could speak to me without fearing what I'd do. After the accident, he refused my money. But he agreed to help with a confidential matter involving a woman who was in danger."
"What woman?"
"I don't know her name. My mother handled the arrangements. Daniel was supposed to help move someone to safety."
"Someone with a baby?"
Roman didn't answer quickly enough.
I felt my stomach drop.
"Who was the baby?"
"I don't know."
"Was it Eli?"
"I don't know, Tessa."
His voice sharpened, then softened.
"That is the truth. I won't pretend otherwise."
For some reason, his refusal to invent an answer made me trust him more than his promises had.
He reached into his jacket and handed me a photograph.
A young woman stood beside a hospital window, holding a newborn wrapped in a white blanket. Her face was turned partly away from the camera, but her eyes were visible.
They were the same pale gray as Roman's.
On the back, someone had written a name.
Isabella Mercer — October 2005.
Roman watched me study it.
"Isabella was my younger sister."
I looked up.
"You have a sister?"
"Had."
His jaw tightened.
"She died twenty years ago. The official report said she suffered complications after giving birth. The baby died shortly afterward."
"Did you see the baby?"
"No. I was recovering from the ambush when my mother told me what happened. By the time I was well enough to investigate, Isabella had been buried and the medical records were sealed."
"Why didn't you tell me this before?"
"Because I didn't know if Eli was connected. I didn't want to put a possibility in your head and make you suffer over it."
I stared at the photograph.
A newborn.
A sealed birth certificate.
My father's mysterious promise.
Vanessa Reed's warning.
It all pointed toward the same terrible possibility.
Eli might be Roman Mercer's nephew.
But before I could ask, Roman's phone rang.
He listened for several seconds.
Then his expression changed.
"What do you mean, he's gone?"
He stood so quickly his chair scraped across the floor.
I grabbed his arm.
"What's happened?"
Roman looked at me.
"Your brother left the apartment."
"Where did he go?"
"Someone saw him get into a gray sedan."
My blood turned to ice.
"Who?"
"We don't know yet."
I was already moving toward the door.
Roman caught up with me outside.
"Tessa, listen. We'll find him."
"Don't you dare tell me to calm down."
"I'm not."
For the first time since I'd met him, his composure cracked.
"I'm telling you that whoever took him has made a mistake."
His phone rang again.
This time, the caller's voice was loud enough for me to hear.
"Don, we've got a message. They say the boy belongs to them."
Roman's face became terrifyingly still.
"What message?"
A photograph appeared on his screen.
Eli was sitting in the back of a car, his wrists bound with plastic ties.
His face was frightened, but he was alive.
Beneath the photograph was a single line.
RETURN THE MERCER HEIR, OR HIS HEART WON'T SURVIVE THE NIGHT.
I looked at Roman.
May you like
He was already calling his men.
Then he turned to me and said, "Tessa, your brother may be the reason Isabella died."
