Chapter 5 - THE CROSS FAMILY LIEAdrian stared at the photograph for so long that I thought he might stop seeing me entirely.
The man on the screen was perhaps sixty.
Gray at the temples.
Heavier than the childhood photograph Adrian eventually pulled from his wallet.
But it was unmistakably the same face.
Jonathan Cross.
Adrian's father.
Officially killed in a boating accident when Adrian was ten years old.
“No body?” I asked.
Adrian slowly shook his head.
“The boat exploded.”
“Who identified him?”
“My uncle Sebastian.”
That answer changed the room.
Sebastian had raised Adrian afterward.
Sebastian had later been murdered by my family.
And now Sebastian appeared to have lied about the death of Adrian's father.
“What if Sebastian knew he survived?” I asked.
Adrian didn't respond.
We returned to Dewees Island shortly before sunrise.
Kane was standing on the back porch watching the ocean.
One glance at the photograph changed his face.
“You recognize him,” Adrian said.
Kane remained silent.
Adrian slammed the image onto the table.
“My father.”
“Yes.”
“You knew he was alive.”
Kane lowered his head.
“Yes.”
I had never seen Adrian look dangerous the way he looked then.
Not angry.
Anger is loud.
This was quieter.
“Explain.”
Kane sat.
“Jonathan Cross wasn't an innocent businessman.”
“I didn't ask what he was.”
“He partnered with Richard Mercer.”
My father.
The sentence seemed impossible.
The Mercer and Cross families had publicly hated each other for decades.
Kane continued.
“Before the rivalry became real, Richard and Jonathan were partners in smuggling operations.”
“Smuggling people?” I asked.
“Initially counterfeit goods. Then weapons. Eventually people.”
Adrian stared at him.
“Sebastian discovered it.”
“Yes.”
“And?”
“Sebastian threatened to expose both men.”
“So my father disappeared.”
Kane nodded.
“Jonathan staged his death. Sebastian agreed because Jonathan promised to leave the country permanently.”
“Why would Sebastian protect him?”
“Because exposing Jonathan would destroy Cross Maritime.”
Adrian laughed bitterly.
“So the honorable uncle who raised me was protecting a criminal.”
“He was protecting you.”
“Don't romanticize it.”
Kane fell silent.
My father's role became clearer.
Richard Mercer had no intention of allowing Jonathan to disappear with knowledge of their network.
So instead, perhaps he had kept Jonathan alive.
Useful.
Hidden.
Working.
And Blake had eventually inherited him too.
“Where has Jonathan been?” Adrian asked.
“Panama. Colombia. Curaçao. Mostly places where Mercer-linked companies operate.”
“And Sebastian?”
“He discovered Jonathan had never really left the business.”
Adrian's expression darkened.
“So he confronted my father.”
“Yes.”
“And Blake killed him.”
“Yes.”
Adrian walked outside.
I waited several minutes before following.
He stood near the dunes, staring at the ocean.
“You don't have to say anything,” I told him.
“Good.”
I stood beside him anyway.
After a while he said, “When I was ten, Sebastian woke me at four in the morning. Told me there had been an accident.”
His voice was flat.
“I remember asking if my father was cold.”
I looked at him.
“That's what children think when they don't understand death. I imagined him in the ocean.”
He swallowed.
“Twenty-two years.”
I didn't touch him.
Not until his hand found mine.
It happened almost unconsciously.
His fingers closed around mine.
I let them.
Maybe that was the moment our marriage became something slightly different from a contract.
Not love.
Not yet.
Just two people discovering that the monsters who built their childhoods had known each other all along.
By eight in the morning, Special Agent Rebecca Shaw arrived.
She was forty-something, sharp-eyed, and unimpressed by wealth.
Adrian told her everything.
Not through official channels.
Not yet.
Shaw listened to the recording of my father and Blake discussing Sebastian's murder.
Then she watched the Warehouse Nine footage.
Finally, she leaned back.
“You understand this is bigger than a family dispute.”
“Yes,” Adrian said.
“And potentially bigger than a trafficking case.”
I asked, “How?”
“Because if Richard Mercer and Jonathan Cross operated together for decades, their network could involve customs officials, port employees, law enforcement, financial institutions.”
“Can you investigate?”
“Carefully.”
“Can you protect us?”
Her expression was honest.
“I can try.”
That wasn't comforting.
She made copies of the evidence and arranged for them to be stored through three separate federal offices.
“From this point forward,” she said, “nobody gets to make this evidence disappear simply by killing one person.”
Kane looked relieved.
Shaw noticed.
“You're Everett Kane.”
He nodded.
“You're legally dead.”
“So I've been told.”
“You understand I'm going to have questions about why.”
“I deserve them.”
She stared at him.
“That's not the same as answering them.”
Before she left, Shaw warned us not to confront Blake.
Which meant, naturally, we were already planning to confront Blake.
His demand for the flash drive gave us leverage.
We prepared the fake.
At noon, I turned my phone back on.
Thirty-seven missed calls.
Mostly Blake.
Three from my mother, Caroline.
One voicemail from her.
“Nora, sweetheart, your brother says you became upset last night. Everyone is worried. Please come home so we can help you.”
The same language.
Upset.
Worried.
Help.
Words used as cages.
I called Blake.
He answered immediately.
“Finally.”
“Where?”
A pause.
“Mercer House.”
“No.”
“You don't dictate terms.”
“Then you don't get the drive.”
Silence.
I had never spoken to my brother that way.
It felt terrifying.
And extraordinary.
“Fine,” he said. “The old yacht club. Five o'clock.”
“Alone?”
“You know the rule.”
I looked at Adrian.
“Of course.”
At four thirty, I drove toward Charleston alone.
At least that was what Blake saw.
Adrian followed far behind in an unmarked vehicle.
Shaw had agents nearby, unofficially, because she still didn't know whom inside her own agency she could trust.
The old yacht club had closed years earlier after hurricane damage.
Blake stood inside the abandoned dining room.
He wore the same tailored navy suit he had worn to my wedding.
As if our lives had simply continued from the reception.
“Little sister.”
“Don't.”
His smile disappeared.
“You made quite a mess.”
“Me?”
“You frightened your husband. Ran away. Contacted a dead man.”
“You framed Adrian.”
“Careful.”
I held up the flash drive.
His eyes followed it.
“So this is what you want?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because certain things should stay buried.”
“Like Sebastian Cross?”
The smile disappeared completely.
“You've been listening.”
“To Dad.”
For the first time, real uncertainty appeared in Blake's face.
Good.
“How much did Kane give you?”
“Enough.”
“And Adrian?”
“Enough.”
Blake sighed.
“You always had terrible judgment.”
“You ordered Kane to beat a thirteen-year-old girl.”
“I ordered him to scare you.”
“He scarred me permanently.”
“Kane was enthusiastic.”
The casualness of the answer almost destroyed me.
Instead, it liberated something.
Blake had spent years existing in my mind as an enormous, terrifying force.
But standing there, he suddenly looked smaller.
Just a man.
A cruel one.
But still only a man.
“You knew.”
“Of course I knew.”
“You saw what he did.”
“Yes.”
“And you did nothing.”
His eyes hardened.
“Nora, our family survived because people learned consequences.”
I stepped closer.
“I was your sister.”
“You were a liability.”
The words hurt.
But they didn't break me.
Not anymore.
I held out the drive.
“What happens after I give this to you?”
“You come home.”
“No.”
“You'll see Dr. Fein tomorrow.”
“The doctor who wrote a psychiatric evaluation without meeting me?”
Blake's expression changed.
I smiled.
“Surprised?”
“You don't understand what you're dealing with.”
“I understand forty-one percent.”
That did it.
For the first time, Blake lost control.
His face went rigid.
“Who told you?”
“Grandmother.”
“She's been dead nineteen years.”
“And apparently she still managed to outsmart you.”
Blake stepped toward me.
“You will never control Mercer Coastal.”
“Why?”
“Because you're weak.”
There it was.
The sentence I had heard my whole life.
I smiled.
“Then why are you so afraid of my birthday?”
He grabbed my wrist.
Hard.
Behind the broken windows, I saw movement.
Adrian.
Waiting.
I could signal him.
I didn't.
Not yet.
Blake leaned close.
“You should have stayed obedient.”
I looked at his hand around my wrist.
Then his face.
“No.”
I pulled free.
“You should have remembered I wouldn't be thirteen forever.”
His mouth tightened.
I tossed the drive onto the table.
He snatched it.
“Goodbye, Blake.”
I turned.
His voice stopped me.
“Nora.”
I looked back.
He smiled again.
“You think Adrian is protecting you?”
I said nothing.
“You haven't asked why he really agreed to marry you.”
“I know about Sebastian.”
“That isn't why.”
My stomach tightened.
Blake walked closer.
“Ask your husband about the original marriage contract.”
“What original contract?”
His smile widened.
“The one he signed before you ever saw yours.”
I felt something cold move through me.
“What was in it?”
Blake leaned toward me.
“The part where Adrian agreed that if you became incapacitated, your Mercer voting shares would transfer to him.”
Everything inside me stopped.
“He didn't tell you?”
I couldn't answer.
Blake laughed softly.
“Oh, Nora.”
He slipped the drive into his pocket.
“You didn't escape your family.”
May you like
His next words followed me all the way to the door.
“You just married another man who wanted to own you.”
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