Chapter 2 - THE HOUSE WITH NO CAMERASAdrian did not take me to his family estate.
He did not call the police.
He did not confront Blake.
Instead, twenty minutes after midnight, we were driving north through heavy rain in Adrian's black Range Rover while my wedding dress lay bundled beneath an oversized coat.
I had changed into jeans and a sweater from my suitcase.
My phone was turned off.
Adrian had removed the battery from his.
Neither of us spoke until Charleston disappeared behind us.
“Where are we going?” I finally asked.
“A house on Dewees Island.”
“Your family's?”
“Mine.”
“There are cameras?”
“No.”
“Staff?”
“One caretaker. He's been told not to come tonight.”
I looked at him suspiciously.
“Why would someone like you own a house without cameras?”
“Because when you've spent half your life surrounded by people who want access to you, privacy becomes expensive.”
I almost smiled.
Almost.
Then he asked, “Who hurt you?”
I looked out the window.
“I already told you.”
“You told me your family was responsible. That's different.”
“Does it matter?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His answer came without hesitation.
“Because I need to know who I'm dealing with.”
There it was.
Not because I care about you.
Not because nobody should have done that.
Strategy.
Enemies.
Information.
That language I understood.
“My father never touched me himself,” I said.
Adrian's grip tightened around the steering wheel.
“He hired people?”
“Not exactly.”
I took a breath.
“When I was thirteen, my father employed a man named Everett Kane. Officially, Kane handled security. Unofficially, he handled problems.”
Adrian's eyes flicked toward me.
“I know the name.”
“Most people in Charleston used to.”
Kane had been enormous, quiet, and completely loyal to my father.
After I overheard Blake discussing Sebastian Cross, my father told Kane that I had become rebellious.
Kane took me to a hunting cabin owned by a Mercer subsidiary.
For three days, he taught me what happened to Mercer children who endangered the family.
He never called it punishment.
He called it correction.
Adrian's voice dropped.
“How?”
I stared at him.
“You saw the answer.”
His face hardened.
I continued before I lost the courage.
“Kane used a leather riding crop. He would ask me what I heard outside my father's study. Every time I answered honestly, he hit me. Eventually I learned the correct answer.”
“Which was?”
“Nothing.”
The tires hissed across wet pavement.
“Where is Kane now?”
“Dead.”
“When?”
“Eight years ago.”
“How?”
“Heart attack.”
Adrian gave me a look.
“You believe that?”
“No.”
That answer seemed to bother him more.
We reached a small private marina shortly after one in the morning. Adrian had arranged a boat. The rain had softened, but the wind was brutal.
The house on Dewees Island stood behind dunes and twisted oak trees, far enough from neighboring homes that the Atlantic was louder than civilization.
Inside, Adrian turned on only two lamps.
The place smelled of cedar.
There were no framed family photographs.
No staff.
No flowers from the wedding.
It felt like entering a life Adrian had never shown anyone.
He locked the door.
Then he took a bottle of whiskey from a cabinet.
“Want one?”
“No.”
He poured himself two fingers.
I watched him swallow half the glass.
“You believe me?” I asked.
Adrian looked over.
“About what?”
“My scars.”
“I saw them.”
“That doesn't prove my story.”
He leaned against the kitchen counter.
“You've spent all night expecting me to accuse you of lying.”
I said nothing.
“Why?”
“Because that's what people do.”
“Your family?”
“Everyone my family pays.”
He placed the glass down.
“I'm not your family.”
The words struck harder than they should have.
“No,” I said. “Your family just hates mine.”
“Not the same thing.”
“Maybe not.”
Adrian walked toward a locked cabinet beneath the stairs. He entered a code, opened it, and removed a thin black folder.
“What is that?”
“The reason I agreed to marry you.”
My stomach tightened.
I had always wondered.
Adrian could have refused Blake's proposal. He had money, power, and no shortage of women eager to become Mrs. Cross.
Yet after one private meeting with Blake, he agreed.
Adrian placed the folder on the table.
Inside were photographs.
Documents.
Bank transfers.
A coroner's report.
And one image that made my chest tighten.
Sebastian Cross.
Adrian's uncle.
His body inside a burned vehicle.
“I was twenty,” Adrian said. “Sebastian raised me after my father died. He taught me the business. He was the closest thing I had to a parent.”
I looked at him.
“The police said he lost control on wet pavement.”
“They lied.”
He slid another photograph toward me.
The vehicle's brake line.
Severed.
“This photograph disappeared from the official accident file. I received it anonymously six months ago.”
“When Blake proposed the marriage?”
“Three days before.”
I understood immediately.
“You thought Blake sent it.”
“I still think he did.”
“Why?”
“Because he wanted me desperate enough for access to your family that I'd say yes.”
A chill moved through me.
“He wanted this marriage.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“That's what we're going to find out.”
Adrian opened another document.
It was a contract.
My name appeared on the second page.
NORA ELAINE MERCER CROSS.
“What is this?”
“Your father's trust.”
I stared.
“I don't have a trust.”
“Yes, you do.”
My eyes lifted.
Adrian turned the page.
“When your grandmother Evelyn Mercer died, she left forty-one percent of Mercer Coastal Holdings to you.”
I laughed once.
It sounded absurd.
“My brother owns Mercer Coastal.”
“Your brother controls it.”
He tapped the paper.
“He doesn't own your shares.”
“I would know if I owned forty-one percent of a billion-dollar company.”
“Would you?”
The question silenced me.
Adrian continued.
“Your grandmother created restrictions. Your father became trustee until you turned thirty.”
“I turn thirty next month.”
“Exactly.”
My stomach dropped.
Adrian pushed another page toward me.
“According to this, control automatically transfers to you on your thirtieth birthday.”
Everything inside me went cold.
Blake had spent years telling me I owned nothing.
My apartment belonged to a Mercer holding company.
My credit cards were paid by family accounts.
My job at the Mercer Foundation existed because Blake permitted it.
Financial dependence had been another lock.
Adrian looked at me carefully.
“There is one exception.”
I forced myself to ask.
“What?”
“If you're considered legally incapacitated.”
I stopped breathing.
Suddenly sixteen years of being called unstable made sense.
The therapists chosen by my father.
The medication I had been pressured to take.
The carefully documented “episodes.”
The family stories.
The reputation.
It hadn't just been cruelty.
It had been preparation.
“They're going to declare me incompetent.”
“I think they're going to try.”
“And marrying you?”
“Changed something.”
He turned to the final page.
“Marriage gives me standing to challenge an emergency guardianship petition.”
I looked at Adrian.
“And Blake knew that?”
“Of course.”
“Then why arrange the marriage?”
“That is the part I couldn't understand.”
My mind raced.
Then I remembered Blake's words six months earlier.
This marriage protects everybody, Nora.
Not you.
Everybody.
A sharp knock sounded against the front door.
We both froze.
Adrian had told nobody where we were.
Another knock came.
Three times.
Slow.
Deliberate.
Adrian reached beneath the kitchen counter and pulled out a handgun.
My heartbeat exploded.
“Stay here.”
He moved toward the door.
“Adrian—”
“Stay.”
Then a man's voice came through the wood.
“Mr. Cross?”
Adrian stopped.
“I have something that belongs to your wife.”
I knew that voice.
Even after eight years.
Even after everyone told me Everett Kane was dead.
I knew it.
My knees nearly gave out.
Adrian looked back.
“What?”
I could barely speak.
“That's Kane.”
His expression changed.
“The man who gave you those scars?”
I nodded.
Outside the door, Everett Kane spoke again.
“Nora.”
May you like
My blood turned to ice.
“You and I need to finish a conversation we started sixteen years ago.”
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