Chapter 4: THE WIFE WHO RETURNED FROM THE GRAVE
For nineteen years, I had carried Anna’s final photograph in my wallet.
I had spoken to her in empty rooms.
I had told Lily stories about the mother she could not remember.
I had blamed myself for the car explosion that supposedly ended her life.
Now she stood ten feet away, alive, steady, and pointing a g/u/n at my heart.
Lily made a broken sound.
Anna’s eyes moved toward her.
The we/@/pon trembled.
“My baby,” she whispered.
Lily stared at her with disbelief.
“You don’t get to call her that,” I said.
Anna flinched.
Mercer pulled free from my grip and stepped beside her.
“You should have stayed hidden,” he muttered.
“You should have kept your promise,” Anna replied.
I looked from one to the other.
“You worked together.”
Anna’s face tightened with shame.
“At first.”
Mercer laughed.
“She always did have a talent for making betrayal sound noble.”
“Tell me the truth,” I said.
Anna lowered the g/u/n slightly.
“Nineteen years ago, I discovered that Mercer was using federal investigations to build a private archive. He collected secrets from politicians, judges, business owners, and c/riminal organizations.”
“The same system he now uses through Blackwood.”
“Yes.”
“Why did you help him take Emma?”
Tears filled her eyes.
“I didn’t.”
Mercer’s expression changed.
Anna turned the g/u/n toward him.
“He took her from the hospital before I woke from surgery.”
Mercer’s voice sharpened.
“Careful.”
“You threatened to take Lily too,” Anna continued. “You said Dominic’s enemies were closing in. You said the only way to protect both girls was for me to disappear.”
My hands curled into fists.
“So you let me believe you were d/e/@/d.”
“I thought Mercer would expose you and the children would be taken. I believed I could find Emma from the outside.”
“For nineteen years?”
“I searched for her every day.”
Mercer sneered.
“She searched from beautiful houses, private accounts, and countries without extradition treaties.”
Anna’s eyes flashed.
“You controlled every identity I used.”
“You were useful.”
Lily began pulling at her ropes again.
Tyler finally cut them loose.
She rushed toward Anna.
I tried to stop her, afraid of what Anna might do.
But Lily ignored me.
She stood inches away from the mother she had mourned her entire life.
Then she slapped Anna across the face.
The sound echoed through the courtroom.
Anna did not move.
Lily pulled out the notepad from her pocket and wrote with shaking hands.
YOU LEFT ME.
Anna read the words.
Her knees nearly gave way.
“I know.”
Lily wrote again.
YOU LEFT HER TOO.
Anna looked at Emma.
“I know.”
Mercer stepped backward toward the hidden door.
Vincent noticed.
“So this is touching,” Mercer said, “but pointless.”
He pressed the remote.
The medical bag beside Emma’s stretcher began emptying faster.
Anna raised the g/u/n.
“Stop it.”
Mercer smiled.
“You won’t shoot me. You need the access code.”
Tyler moved toward the machine.
One of the remaining guards grabbed him.
They struggled.
The guard drew a kn/i/fe.
Lily screamed through her injured jaw.
Tyler twisted away, but the blade cut his shoulder.
Vincent tackled the guard.
I reached Emma’s stretcher and tore the tube from the bag.
Mercer ran through the hidden door.
Anna fired once.
The shot struck the wall beside him.
He disappeared into the passage.
I turned to her.
“You missed.”
“No,” she said. “I warned him.”
“After everything he did?”
“You still don’t understand.”
“Then explain it.”
Anna looked toward Emma.
“Charles Mercer is not the only person behind Blackwood.”
Vincent froze.
“Who else?”
Anna swallowed.
“Someone from Dominic’s old organization.”
I stared at her.
“Name.”
She did not answer.
“Anna.”
“The man who helped Mercer build the university network was the same man who convinced you to preserve the archive.”
The courtroom became silent.
Everyone looked at Vincent.
He stood beside Tyler, bl/o/od spreading across his sleeve from the struggle.
His face revealed nothing.
Anna raised the g/u/n toward him.
“Vincent Moretti.”
Lily stepped back.
Tyler stared.
I looked at the man who had stood beside me since I was twenty-one.
Vincent slowly lifted his hands.
“She’s lying.”
Anna shook her head.
“He gave Mercer the location of St. Gabriel’s.”
“That safe house belonged to Dominic’s father. Dozens of people knew it existed.”
“But only three knew it had been restored.”
Vincent looked at me.
“You, me, and Anna.”
“Anna was supposed to be d/e/@/d,” I said.
His jaw tightened.
I remembered the call.
Someone had known we were going to the boathouse.
Someone had known where Lily had been moved.
Someone had guided me toward the chapel.
Someone had stood beside me when Mercer called the disconnected landline.
Vincent had been present at every turn.
He had never been following my orders.
He had been guiding my path.
“Why?” I asked.
His expression softened.
“Because you abandoned everything we built.”
“I left to protect my daughter.”
“You left thousands of men without direction. Families lost businesses. Alliances collapsed. Our enemies took the ports. You called it retirement. The rest of us called it betrayal.”
“You helped Mercer take Emma?”
“No.”
Anna interrupted.
“He helped Mercer keep her.”
Vincent’s eyes flashed.
“That was never the agreement.”
Mercer’s voice sounded through hidden speakers.
“There are no agreements between thieves, Vincent. Only temporary interests.”
The courtroom doors slammed shut.
Metal locks engaged.
Smoke began seeping from vents near the ceiling.
Anna looked upward.
“He’s sealing the building.”
Vincent lowered his hands.
“There is a tunnel beneath the judge’s chambers.”
“You know because you built it?” I asked.
“I know because I planned to use it tonight.”
He tore open Tyler’s shirt sleeve and tied it around the wound.
“Decide whether you hate me later. Move now.”
We pushed Emma’s stretcher toward the hidden passage.
Lily stayed beside her.
Anna walked behind them.
I remained near Vincent.
“How much of it is true?”
“Enough.”
“That is not an answer.”
“It is the only one you get until your daughters are safe.”
We entered the tunnel as smoke filled the courtroom.
The passage descended beneath the courthouse toward the river.
Halfway down, we found Mercer’s discarded coat.
The remote was gone.
So was he.
At the end of the tunnel stood a steel door.
Vincent entered a code.
It opened into an underground train platform abandoned decades earlier.
A black railcar waited on the tracks.
Mercer stood inside.
Beside him were Senator Hale, Richard Cole, and Harold Whitmore.
The three powerful parents who had supposedly been protecting their sons were gathered together.
But they did not look confident.
They looked terrified.
Mercer held a small device in one hand.
In the other, he held a folder marked PROJECT EDEN.
He smiled when he saw us.
“Excellent,” he said. “The entire family has arrived.”
Then Emma’s eyes opened.
She turned her head toward Mercer.
Her voice was barely a whisper.
“Father?”
Mercer smiled.
May you like
But Emma was not looking at him.
She was looking at Vincent.
