Chapter 6 - The Son Who Inherited the Lie
Adrian did not sleep for thirty-six hours.
By Monday morning, Mercer headquarters felt less like a corporation than a crime scene.
Federal investigators seized records related to Richmond Towers.
Reporters camped outside.
The board demanded Adrian temporarily step aside.
He refused.
Then they voted.
Seven to four.
Adrian Mercer was placed on administrative leave from the company his grandfather built.
He walked out carrying one cardboard box.
Lena waited across the street.
He saw her and stopped.
“You shouldn’t be here.”
“You came to Pier 19 when you shouldn’t have.”
“That was different.”
“That line sounds familiar.”
He almost smiled.
Almost.
She looked at the box.
“They fired you?”
“Temporarily.”
“Because of something that happened when you were a kid?”
“Because my last name is Mercer.”
Lena understood more than he expected.
“My last name is Brooks. Apparently that comes with baggage too.”
They walked without a destination.
For the first time since she met him, Adrian did not have a driver, assistant or security team surrounding him.
He looked strangely ordinary.
“You hungry?” Lena asked.
“Not really.”
“That means yes.”
She took him to a diner.
Adrian stared at the laminated menu.
“What?”
Lena smiled.
“Nothing.”
“You’re staring at me.”
“I’m waiting for you to ask whether the pancakes have a stock portfolio.”
“I have eaten in diners.”
“Name one.”
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Lena laughed.
It was the first uncomplicated sound either had made in days.
Over coffee, Adrian told her something he had never told Celeste.
“I didn’t want the company.”
Lena looked surprised.
“What did you want?”
“To design buildings.”
“You own a development company.”
“That isn’t the same.”
He traced the edge of his cup.
“When I was seventeen, I wanted architecture school. My father told me Mercers don’t draw buildings. We finance them.”
“Your father?”
“Charles.”
Lena realized she knew almost nothing about Adrian’s parents.
“Where is he?”
“London. Mostly.”
“And your mother?”
“Paris. Mostly.”
“That sounds healthy.”
“It’s extremely efficient. They can disappoint me from two continents.”
She smiled.
Then his expression became serious.
“My grandfather was the person who raised me.”
“That makes this harder.”
“Yes.”
He looked at her.
“I spent my whole life believing he was the best man I knew.”
“Maybe he was a good man who did something terrible.”
“That sounds like something Grandma would say.”
“Maybe she’s right.”
Adrian stared through the window.
“Does that excuse it?”
“No.”
He looked back.
Lena continued.
“But if people are only allowed to be good after making no mistakes, there aren’t many good people left.”
He studied her.
“You’re defending the man who paid your father to stay silent?”
“No.”
She paused.
“I’m trying not to become someone who thinks anger is the same thing as truth.”
Adrian looked at her for a long time.
Then his phone rang.
Margaret.
He answered.
Her voice was frantic.
“Adrian, come home.”
“What happened?”
“I found Thomas’s report.”
The missing investigative report had been hidden behind a false panel inside Thomas’s desk.
It named Richard Whitmore.
It named Victor Hale.
And it named one more person.
Charles Mercer.
Adrian’s father.
According to the report, Charles had discovered the defective steel months before Daniel Brooks did.
He had concealed it.
Not because Richard paid him.
Because exposing the defect would have bankrupted Mercer Construction.
Thomas had confronted his son.
Charles admitted everything.
Then Daniel discovered the same evidence.
Thomas panicked.
He offered Daniel money.
Richard handled the agreement.
But Daniel eventually decided to go public anyway.
The report stopped there.
Adrian read the final page twice.
“My father knew.”
Margaret nodded.
“Thomas sent Charles away after Daniel died.”
“That’s why he moved to Europe.”
“Yes.”
“You told me it was business.”
“I lied.”
Adrian stood so abruptly that the chair fell backward.
“All of you lied.”
“Adrian—”
“My grandfather. My father. You.”
“I was trying to protect you.”
He laughed.
“There it is again.”
Margaret flinched.
Adrian walked out.
Lena followed him into the garden.
“Adrian.”
“Don’t.”
He kept walking.
She grabbed his arm.
He turned.
There were tears in his eyes.
Not many.
Enough.
“My father may have helped cause your father’s death.”
“We don’t know that.”
“He concealed evidence.”
“Yes.”
“And you’re standing here comforting me?”
“I’m not comforting you.”
“What are you doing?”
“Stopping you from running.”
He stared at her.
“You don’t get to disappear because the truth hurts.”
“You should hate me.”
“For what?”
“Being his son.”
Lena’s expression softened.
“You didn’t choose your father.”
“No.”
“But you choose what you do next.”
The words struck him.
They were almost identical to Margaret’s description of Thomas sixty-three years earlier.
Adrian looked at Lena.
She was standing close.
Closer than either had realized.
For a second, everything else disappeared.
The investigation.
Celeste.
Richard.
Their fathers.
Adrian’s gaze dropped toward her lips.
Lena felt it.
She did not move.
Neither did he.
Then Adrian stepped backward.
“No.”
Lena blinked.
He looked away.
“You’ve been hurt. Your family’s in danger. My family is connected to it. Anything between us right now would be—”
“Complicated?”
“Wrong.”
Something in Lena’s face closed.
“Right.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“No. You’re right.”
She stepped away.
“You’re the billionaire whose fiancée attacked me, and I’m the employee your family accidentally dragged into a thirty-year-old conspiracy.”
“Lena.”
“What could possibly go wrong?”
She walked back toward the house.
Adrian hated himself for wanting to follow.
His phone rang again.
Unknown international number.
He answered.
“Hello?”
A familiar voice said, “Son.”
Adrian stopped walking.
His father.
“Where are you?”
Charles Mercer sounded tired.
“Somewhere Richard Whitmore can’t find me.”
Adrian’s hand tightened around the phone.
“You knew.”
Silence.
“You knew about Daniel Brooks.”
“Yes.”
“Did Richard kill him?”
Another silence.
Then Charles whispered:
“No.”
Adrian closed his eyes.
May you like
“Who did?”
“I did.”
