Chapter 3 - THE NOTE ROMAN WAS AFRAID TO READ
Roman’s house was not a house.
It was a fortress pretending to be tasteful.
Stone walls.
Private road.
Cameras everywhere.
I hated it on sight.
Lucy loved the heated floors.
“This bathroom is bigger than our apartment.”
“Don’t get ideas.”
Roman heard us.
“I can give you the east wing.”
“No.”
“You haven’t seen it.”
“Still no.”
Lucy whispered, “I want the east wing.”
Traitor.
Iris slept for twelve hours.
A doctor Roman trusted examined her.
No serious injury.
Sedative in her blood.
Bronchial infection beginning.
“She was fortunate,” the doctor said.
Roman looked at me.
“No.”
He said it quietly.
“She was found.”
That evening, I sat in Roman’s library while Lucy slept upstairs beside Iris.
Roman placed the note on the desk.
“Mother died twelve years ago.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded.
“She wrote constantly.”
“Notes like this?”
“Never.”
He turned the paper.
Blank back.
“Her handwriting?”
“Yes.”
“You’re sure?”
“I spent thirty years receiving birthday cards from her.”
Fair.
“What did she die from?”
“Cancer.”
Something in his answer felt too fast.
“You don’t believe that?”
His eyes sharpened.
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t need to.”
For the first time, Roman smiled.
Barely.
“You ask too many questions.”
“You brought me into your fortress.”
“Estate.”
“Fortress.”
He looked at the note.
“My mother became ill quickly.”
“How quickly?”
“Four months.”
“And?”
“Nothing.”
“That isn’t nothing.”
He leaned back.
“Do you always interrogate people who protect you?”
“Only mysterious criminals.”
“I’m a shipping executive.”
I stared at him.
“Lucy is five and lies better.”
He laughed.
Actually laughed.
Then became serious again.
“My father built shipping companies. Other businesses grew around them.”
“Illegal ones?”
Silence.
“That’s a yes.”
“Some.”
“And you run them?”
“Less than my father did.”
Not the answer I wanted.
But honest.
Mostly.
“Who is Victor?”
“My father’s cousin.”
“The one Iris mentioned?”
“Yes.”
“Close to you?”
“He helped raise us.”
“And now he tried to kill your sister?”
“I don’t know that.”
“You think it.”
“Yes.”
“What does ‘not of the same blood’ mean?”
Roman looked toward the fire.
“My father had one obsession.”
“Which was?”
“Bloodline.”
Of course.
“Everything transferred through family trusts.”
“So if Iris isn’t his biological daughter…”
“She loses rights to several assets.”
“And you?”
“I remain heir.”
“That gives you motive.”
Roman looked at me.
“Do you think I tried to kill her?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“I saw your face when you found her.”
He became very still.
I regretted saying it because it felt too personal.
Then he nodded.
“My mother used to say blood was the least interesting thing about family.”
“Your father disagreed?”
“Violently.”
I didn’t ask what violently meant.
Then Iris appeared.
Pale.
Barefoot.
Lucy’s blanket around her shoulders.
“I remember something.”
Roman stood.
“What?”
“The envelope.”
She sat.
“It had a name.”
“Whose?”
“I couldn’t read all of it.”
Roman waited.
“Mercer.”
My stomach dropped.
“What?”
Iris looked at me.
“Your last name is Mercer, right?”
“Yes.”
“The envelope said Mercer.”
Roman turned toward me.
Every muscle in my body tightened.
“I don’t know your family.”
He said, “Your mother?”
“Dead.”
“What was her name?”
“Elaine.”
Iris whispered:
“Elaine Mercer?”
I looked at her.
“Yes.”
She went pale.
Roman’s face changed too.
“What?”
I demanded.
He crossed the library.
Opened a locked cabinet.
Removed an old photograph album.
He turned pages.
Then stopped.
A charity banquet.
Twenty years earlier.
Roman as a teenager.
Iris a toddler.
Their mother seated at a table.
Standing behind her—
my mother.
Younger.
Hair tied back.
Wearing white medical scrubs.
I couldn’t breathe.
“That’s her.”
Roman looked at me.
“My mother’s private nurse was Elaine Mercer.”
I sat down.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“She worked hospice.”
“Before that?”
“I don’t know.”
Neither did I.
My mother never talked about Baltimore’s wealthy families.
She rarely talked about the years before I was ten.
Roman turned the photograph over.
There was handwriting.
His mother’s.
Elena, Elaine, Ren, little Iris. Family is who stays.
Roman read it twice.
Then looked at the note on the desk.
NOT OF THE SAME BLOOD
My mother knew the Bellandis.
Their mother trusted her enough to write her name in a family album.
And Iris had found a warning hidden in an envelope addressed to someone named Mercer.
Roman’s eyes met mine.
“I think your mother knew what this note meant.”
There was only one problem.
My mother had been dead for nine years.
May you like
And if somebody had tried to bury this secret for twenty—
they had just learned her daughter was alive.
