Chapter 2 - ELEANOR VALE
I woke to the sound of Caleb crying.
Not loudly.
That somehow made it worse.
His little voice came through a half-open door somewhere beyond the darkness.
“She saved me. Why can’t I see her?”
A man answered.
“Because she needs to rest.”
“But you said she’d wake up.”
“She will.”
“You don’t know that.”
Silence.
Then Dominic Mercer said something I never expected to hear from a man like him.
“No. I don’t.”
I opened my eyes.
Pain immediately tore through my chest.
The ceiling above me wasn’t a hospital ceiling. It was cream-colored, bordered with dark wood, and illuminated by a chandelier I recognized.
Blackthorne House.
I tried moving.
A hand closed around mine.
“Don’t.”
Dominic sat beside the bed.
He had changed out of his blood-covered tuxedo, but he hadn’t shaved. Dark stubble covered his jaw, and exhaustion had carved shadows beneath his eyes.
“How long?”
“Thirty-six hours.”
“Caleb?”
“Alive.”
My eyes closed.
The relief hurt almost as much as the bullets.
Dominic leaned forward.
“The doctors removed two bullets. The third passed through your shoulder. You lost enough blood that they weren’t sure you’d survive the night.”
“Doctors?”
“My doctors.”
Of course.
A mafia billionaire probably didn’t take inconvenient gunshot victims through emergency-room registration.
I tried sitting up.
Dominic stopped me.
“Where is he?”
“The shooter?”
I nodded.
“Dead.”
My stomach tightened.
“Who killed him?”
Dominic’s expression didn’t change.
“I did.”
There was no pride in his voice.
No apology either.
Just fact.
Then he reached toward the bedside table.
My heart nearly stopped when he placed a photograph beside me.
Eight years disappeared.
I was twenty-three again, standing inside a federal courthouse in Baltimore with my hair cut to my shoulders and terror twisting my stomach.
The woman in that photograph was me.
Underneath it was a name.
ELEANOR VALE.
Dominic watched my face.
“Would you like to explain?”
I said nothing.
“You came into my house under a false identity.”
Still nothing.
“You forged employment references.”
Nothing.
“My security team found no birth certificate for Mara Ellis, no school history, no tax records before eight years ago.”
“You investigated me.”
“Someone tried to murder my son while you were standing beside him. Yes, Eleanor, I investigated you.”
Hearing that name again felt like someone opening a grave.
“Don’t call me that.”
“Why?”
“Because Eleanor Vale died eight years ago.”
Dominic leaned back.
“Apparently not.”
The door opened.
Caleb ran inside before anyone could stop him.
He had a bandage above one eyebrow and was still wearing dinosaur pajamas.
“Mara!”
Dominic stood quickly.
“Caleb—”
But the boy had already reached me.
He stopped before touching the bed.
His excitement disappeared.
For the first time, he seemed to understand how badly I had been hurt.
“Does it hurt?”
“A little.”
“You’re lying.”
I smiled weakly.
“Maybe a medium amount.”
His eyes filled with tears.
“I’m sorry.”
That destroyed me.
“Come here.”
I held out my good arm.
Caleb climbed carefully onto the edge of the mattress.
“You did nothing wrong,” I whispered.
“The man was shooting at me.”
“That still isn’t your fault.”
“But you got hurt.”
“And I’d do it again.”
Dominic looked away.
Caleb rested his forehead against my arm.
Then he whispered, “Dad didn’t sleep.”
“Traitor,” Dominic muttered.
“He sat there all night.”
“Caleb.”
“And he yelled at the doctor.”
“I did not yell.”
“You said you’d buy the hospital and fire everybody.”
I looked at Dominic.
For the first time, the feared Dominic Mercer actually appeared embarrassed.
“I was under considerable stress.”
Despite the pain, I laughed.
It lasted only two seconds before my ribs punished me.
Caleb smiled.
Dominic didn’t.
He was staring at me in a way that made my skin cold.
Because we both knew this peaceful moment was temporary.
Eventually, Caleb’s nanny collected him.
The door closed.
Dominic waited.
“Who was the man in the ballroom?”
“I don’t know.”
“You recognized him.”
“No.”
“You looked at him like you’d seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I had.”
His jaw tightened.
“Eleanor.”
“Stop calling me that.”
“Then tell me who he was.”
I looked toward the window.
Rain streaked the glass.
For eight years I had survived because I never told anyone the entire truth.
Not police.
Not employers.
Not lovers.
Especially not powerful men.
But someone had found me.
Which meant running again wouldn’t solve anything.
“His name is Julian Cross.”
Dominic went completely still.
That frightened me more than anger would have.
“You know him.”
“Yes.”
“How?”
Dominic rose and walked to the window.
“Julian Cross worked for my father.”
My blood went cold.
“That’s impossible.”
“No.”
“He died eight years ago.”
Dominic turned.
“So did you.”
Neither of us spoke.
Then I finally told him the secret that had destroyed my life.
“My father was Nathaniel Vale. He was a forensic accountant for Cross Atlantic Shipping.”
Dominic’s eyes sharpened.
“He discovered someone laundering money through humanitarian shipping contracts. Millions disappeared. Weapons moved through ports under falsified manifests. My father collected evidence.”
“What happened?”
“He called me one night and told me to meet him at a motel outside Baltimore.”
My throat tightened.
“When I arrived, the room was burning.”
Dominic said nothing.
“My father was inside.”
I had spent eight years teaching myself to say those words without crying.
It still didn’t work.
“Julian found me in the parking lot. He told me Dad had made a mistake. Then he tried to put me in his car.”
“What did you do?”
“I stabbed him.”
Dominic raised an eyebrow.
“With what?”
“A motel pen.”
For one impossible second, amusement touched his face.
Then disappeared.
“I ran. Federal agents found me two days later. They believed Julian died in a warehouse explosion six weeks afterward.”
“But you didn’t.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because somebody inside the investigation leaked my location twice.”
Dominic understood immediately.
“You stopped trusting the government.”
“I stopped trusting everyone.”
He walked toward the door.
“Where are you going?”
“To find Julian Cross.”
Fear surged through me.
“Dominic.”
He stopped.
“The shooter wasn’t aiming only at Caleb.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t.”
I forced myself upright despite the pain.
“My father hid something before he died.”
Dominic slowly turned.
“I never found it. Neither did Julian.”
“What?”
“I don’t know.”
A knock interrupted us.
Dominic’s security chief entered carrying a transparent evidence bag.
Inside was a bloodstained silver cuff link.
“We found this beneath the broken table where Cross was standing,” he said.
Dominic took it.
Then his face changed.
Engraved into the silver was a symbol.
A black thorn wrapped around the letter M.
The Mercer family crest.
Dominic stared at it.
“That belongs to my brother.”
I forgot how to breathe.
Dominic had one younger brother.
Alexander Mercer.
The charming uncle Caleb adored.
The man who had been standing twenty feet from us when the shooting started.
May you like
And suddenly we understood something worse than Julian Cross being alive.
Someone inside Blackthorne House had opened the door for him.
