Chapter 14 - Vincent Mercer
DNA was Patrick Mercer's favorite weapon.
So none of us believed him without proof.
He had proof.
Old records.
Photographs.
A paternity test.
Eleanor didn't deny the affair.
Patrick Callahan had been sterile after an illness.
He desperately wanted an heir.
Eleanor turned to Patrick Mercer.
One night.
One mistake.
Vincent.
Patrick Callahan knew.
He raised Vincent anyway.
For the first time, I understood why Patrick Callahan's relationship with Vincent had always been poisoned.
Not because Vincent failed him.
Because every time Patrick looked at his son, he saw another man's blood.
Vincent stared at Eleanor.
“You let him punish me for existing.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
That single honest word was more brutal than any excuse.
Patrick Mercer smiled.
“Now you understand why you're the match.”
His bloodline.
His son.
Patrick Callahan's illness required a donor profile that Vincent happened to satisfy, but Patrick Mercer had exploited the situation to control both families.
“Why Sophie?”
I demanded.
Patrick's smile faded.
“She was never necessary.”
Everything stopped.
The prenatal reports had been manipulated.
Sophie wasn't a critical donor.
She was bait.
For Vincent.
For Margaret.
For Evan.
For every surviving piece of the Mercer and Callahan families.
“You endangered a newborn to gather us?”
“To expose what your father started.”
“My father tried stopping it.”
“After he built it.”
Patrick believed Daniel had stolen credit, money, and family authority.
Decades of resentment became ideology.
Project Winter was revenge wearing a lab coat.
I looked at this old man and realized something.
There was no revelation that could make him interesting enough to excuse what he'd done.
“You're pathetic.”
That hurt him.
More than fear would have.
“You think—”
“No.”
I stepped closer.
“You spent decades manipulating marriages, children, illnesses and deaths because your brother mattered more than you.”
His face changed.
Vincent almost smiled.
Patrick reached inside his coat.
Federal agents raised weapons.
He stopped.
Slowly removed—
A key.
He tossed it onto the snow.
“Then end it.”
The key opened the underground archive beneath the ranch.
Original Project Winter records.
Every participant.
Every payment.
Every crime.
Enough to destroy dozens of powerful people.
Patrick surrendered.
Too easily.
Vincent noticed.
“So what's missing?”
Patrick looked pleased.
“Finally.”
“What?”
“The first file.”
Daniel's original subject.
Subject 001.
Not Sophie.
Not Vincent.
Not Michael.
A child studied before any of them.
“Who?”
Patrick looked at Margaret.
She began crying.
“No.”
I turned.
“Mom?”
Patrick answered.
“Claire.”
My stomach dropped.
Impossible.
Project Winter began before I was born.
Then Margaret whispered:
“Not you.”
She looked toward me.
“Your sister.”
I stared.
“I don't have a sister.”
Margaret closed her eyes.
“Yes, you do.”
Before Daniel and Margaret had me, they had another daughter.
Stillborn.
Supposedly.
I almost laughed.
Nobody in this family had ever learned what “dead” meant.
“Where is she?”
Margaret looked toward the federal vehicles.
A woman stepped out.
Dark hair.
Forty.
Badge at her waist.
Nora Bell.
My mother whispered:
“Her name wasn't Nora when she was born.”
Nora stopped walking.
Margaret looked directly at her.
“It was Eleanor Mercer.”
Nora's face collapsed.
May you like
And suddenly the federal agent investigating my family wasn't an outsider.
She was my sister.
