Chapter 10 - Blood Is Not Loyalty
Charles Mercer arrived before the police could reach him.
He walked into the library with no coat, no lawyer, and no visible fear.
“I heard there was a problem,” he said.
Julian stared at his brother. “Sit down.”
Charles noticed the laptop.
Then Rosa.
Then his confidence cracked.
Julian pressed play.
The third voice spoke again.
Enough. If we do this, we do it clean.
Charles closed his eyes.
Leo stood in the doorway behind him.
“You helped kill my mother?”
Charles turned. “No.”
“You were there.”
“I was trying to stop them.”
Julian laughed once. “That’s what you call stopping them?”
Charles sat slowly. “Anna discovered transfers I authorized. I had gambling debt. Miles helped move money through vendor accounts. Eleanor knew. She used it to control me.”
“How much?”
“Three million by then.”
“And the brakes?”
“I told Miles not to do it.”
“You told him to do it clean.”
“I meant the financial records.”
Charles looked at Leo. “I swear to you, I never touched that car.”
“Did you warn my mother?”
Silence.
“Did you warn Dad?”
Silence again.
Leo’s voice shook. “Then you helped.”
Police arrived twenty minutes later and took Charles for questioning.
Eleanor was arrested at the guest cottage on suspicion of conspiracy, fraud, assault, and evidence tampering. She screamed Julian’s name all the way to the car.
Miles Grant could not be found.
That should have felt like victory.
It did not.
At 6:20 that evening, Marcus entered the library holding a sealed evidence bag.
“We found this taped under Eleanor’s desk.”
Inside was a flash drive.
On it were dozens of scanned documents.
Corporate transfers.
Medical forms.
Draft court petitions.
And a video file labeled LEO_21.
Leo frowned. “I’m not twenty-one.”
Marcus opened it.
The video showed a private room in a psychiatric facility.
On the bed lay a young man who looked almost exactly like Leo.
May you like
Julian whispered, “That’s impossible.”
The date stamp was seventeen years old.
