Chapter 13 - My Father’s Ledger
The address led to an abandoned accounting office in Queens.
Police wanted me outside.
I agreed.
Then went inside anyway.
Robert Mercer was waiting.
Alive.
Seventy-one.
Thin.
Older than every memory I had preserved.
“David.”
I punched him.
Not heroic.
Not planned.
Twenty-two years arrived in one fist.
He took it.
“I deserved that.”
“No. You deserved twenty-two birthdays.”
His eyes filled.
“I know.”
I wanted to hate him.
It would have been easier.
Instead, he showed me the ledger.
The Vance fortune contained money routed through fraudulent defense procurement and shell logistics contracts decades earlier.
Robert discovered it.
Thomas wanted him dead.
Rebecca helped him escape.
That surprised me.
“Rebecca saved you?”
“Yes.”
“Then why is she hunting you?”
“Because I kept the evidence.”
There was always another layer.
Rebecca wasn't protecting Robert out of kindness.
She wanted leverage against Thomas.
Robert realized this and disappeared from her too.
For twenty-two years he gathered evidence.
Then I married Maya.
“I thought Rebecca arranged it.”
“What?”
“She knew who you were. I thought she pushed Maya toward you.”
Maya and I had met accidentally at a bookstore.
At least I thought we had.
I called her.
“Do you remember who invited you to that author event?”
Silence.
“Rebecca.”
My marriage began with a coincidence someone may have engineered.
But manipulation can arrange a meeting.
It cannot manufacture seven years.
Liam.
Love.
Every ordinary Tuesday.
I refused to let Rebecca own those.
Robert created Northstar when he learned Maya was pregnant.
He wanted to protect the descendant trust from both Vance siblings.
“Why not tell us?”
“Because you would have gone to police.”
“Yes.”
“They had people inside.”
“That's not your decision.”
He lowered his head.
Another man protecting me by removing my choices.
I was becoming tired of being loved that way.
Then glass shattered.
Robert shoved me down.
A bullet struck the wall.
Rebecca entered through the rear corridor holding a handgun.
“Give me the ledger.”
My biological family.
Maya’s biological family.
Millions of dollars.
Twenty-two years of lies.
All condensed into one dirty office.
Robert slowly raised the ledger.
Then smiled.
“You still think this is the original?”
Rebecca’s face changed.
He had already sent copies.
Federal investigators.
Journalists.
Maya.
Me.
Everyone.
Rebecca fired.
Police returned fire from the doorway.
When the noise ended, Robert was on the floor.
Rebecca was gone.
Again.
And beneath my father’s hand was a photograph.
Eleanor.
Rebecca.
Thomas.
Robert.
All four standing together.
Dated 1999.
On the back:
May you like
We all agreed.
No children were supposed to know.
