THE MAFIA BOSS OWED MY FATHER A DEBT — AND MY BROTHER WAS THE SECRET HE'D BEEN HIDING

Roman watched the recording three times.

Each time, he became quieter.

I understood anger. I'd felt it when I learned about the stolen trust, when Vanessa threatened Eli, and when Roman suggested my brother might somehow be responsible for Isabella's death.

But Roman's silence was different.

It was the silence of someone discovering that the foundation beneath his entire life had been built by a liar.

"Could the video be fake?" I asked.

"Possibly," he replied. "That's why we're verifying the timestamp, the footage, and the voices."

He looked at his security chief.

"Nobody outside this room sees that file."

The man nodded and left.

I folded my arms.

"What happens if it's real?"

Roman stared at the frozen image of his father.

"Then I have to accept that the man who raised me was willing to murder his own family to protect his empire."

"People do terrible things for power."

"Yes. They do."

His eyes shifted toward mine.

"Sometimes they convince themselves they're doing it for love."

I thought of my father, hiding the truth about Eli because he believed secrecy was protection.

"Did your father know Isabella was in danger?"

"I don't know."

"Did he know Eli survived?"

"Apparently."

"Then somebody has been lying to you for twenty years."

Roman gave a humorless smile.

"Welcome to my family."

I wanted to laugh, but I couldn't.

Instead, I asked the question that had been eating at me.

"Why did you really hire me?"

He looked surprised.

"I told you. I owe your father a debt."

"That's not the whole answer."

He said nothing.

"Roman, you knew my surname before you knew anything about me. You knew I had a brother. You knew my father had died. You offered me triple the salary I was making, full insurance, and a private meeting. You don't make that kind of decision because you feel guilty."

He leaned against the desk.

"You're right."

"Then tell me."

"When I learned Daniel had died, I found a note he'd sent to my mother years earlier. He asked her to protect his children if anything happened to him. My mother promised she would."

"Your mother was already dead."

"Yes. But she had established a trust for you and Eli. I thought bringing you into my world would give me a chance to repay what Daniel did for me."

"And the secret?"

"I didn't know about Eli's connection to Isabella until after you arrived."

I studied him.

"Do you expect me to believe that?"

"No. I expect you to judge me by what I do next."

For the first time, I saw something beneath the controlled exterior.

Fear.

Not fear of being shot, arrested, or betrayed by a rival.

Fear of failing someone who had trusted him.

Before I could answer, Adrian entered.

"Don, Grant is missing."

Roman's expression hardened.

"Since when?"

"His apartment is empty. His security credentials were used to access the east wing at two this morning."

"Who was with him?"

"No one. The cameras were disabled for eleven minutes."

Roman walked to the door.

"Lock down the estate. Nobody leaves without my authorization."

I followed him.

"You're not going after him alone."

He turned.

"Tessa—"

"Your father ordered someone to kill you. Grant was in that video. If he's still working with whoever arranged Isabella's death, you need someone who doesn't owe you their life."

Roman studied me.

"You have no idea how dangerous this is."

"I have a brother with a damaged heart who was kidnapped because of a secret he never chose to keep. I think I understand danger."

He didn't argue again.

We found Grant's car abandoned near the river.

Inside was a phone, a bloodstained handkerchief, and an envelope addressed to Roman.

The letter contained only three sentences.

You were never meant to survive the accident.

Your father gave the order.

And Isabella's death was not his first attempt.

Roman read it twice.

Then he crumpled the paper.

"He's trying to manipulate us," I said.

"Maybe."

"But?"

Roman looked toward the water.

"The accident that nearly killed me twenty-one years ago wasn't a random attack. My father claimed a rival family had targeted us. I spent years hunting the men he named."

"Did you find them?"

"Two were dead. One disappeared. The others denied everything."

I felt sick.

"Your father sent you after innocent people?"

"If this letter is true, I may have spent half my life punishing people who had nothing to do with it."

For a long moment, neither of us spoke.

Then Roman turned to me.

"I need to tell you something about your father."

"What?"

"After the accident, Daniel came to see me. He said the person who changed my route had access to my family's private security system. He believed it was someone close to my father."

"Did he name the person?"

Roman nodded.

"Grant."

I thought of the young man in the hospital footage, carrying the newborn.

"Then why did you trust him?"

"Because Grant was the one who carried me out of the hospital after my surgery. He swore he'd protect me."

"Maybe he was protecting you from the wrong people."

Roman's face tightened.

"Or maybe he was waiting for the right moment to finish what he'd started."

That night, I sat beside Eli while he slept.

His heart monitor beeped steadily. A doctor had adjusted his medication, and the immediate danger had passed, but his body was exhausted.

I held his hand.

"You don't have to be a Mercer," I whispered. "You don't have to inherit anything. You just have to stay alive."

His eyes opened.

"Tessa?"

"I'm here."

He swallowed.

"There's something I didn't tell Roman."

I sat up.

"What?"

"When the woman showed me the video, she played another recording. Dad was talking to a doctor."

"Which doctor?"

"I don't know. But Dad said the truth about my heart was in the original hospital file."

I frowned.

"What truth?"

Eli looked frightened.

"He said I wasn't supposed to survive the operation."

My entire body went cold.

"What operation?"

"The one I had when I was a baby. The woman said my medical history was changed because somebody needed me to look like a child with a condition that would eventually kill me."

I stared at him.

That made no sense. Eli had lived with a serious heart condition for twenty years. He'd undergone procedures, taken medication, and seen specialists who believed his diagnosis was genuine.

Unless the original diagnosis had been altered.

Unless someone had hidden a second condition beneath the first.

I called the doctor who had been treating Eli since childhood.

He agreed to review the records, but he warned me that the oldest files had been transferred to a private archive after a hospital merger.

"Who controls that archive?" I asked.

There was a long pause.

"The Mercer Foundation."

I looked toward the hallway.

Roman stood in the doorway.