Chapter 4 - THE HONEYMOON ENDED IN BLOOD
Grant crossed the balcony before Sloan could move.
He did not touch her.
That frightened her more.
“Who was your father?”
Sloan's face emptied.
“You know who my father was.”
“No.”
“You never asked.”
Grant's jaw tightened.
“Who?”
Sloan walked toward the room.
Grant blocked the doorway.
“Adrian Mercer.”
She said it softly.
Almost proudly.
The name moved through Grant like ice water.
He had been fifteen when Adrian Mercer died.
Old enough to remember the whispers.
Young enough that Walter had refused to tell him everything.
Grant remembered one thing clearly.
His mother crying in a locked bedroom.
His father arriving home with blood on his shirt.
Then Adrian Mercer disappearing from every conversation forever.
“What do you want?”
Sloan smiled faintly.
“Now you ask?”
Grant's phone vibrated.
Nico.
He ignored it.
“Did you plan to hurt Hannah?”
Sloan's smile vanished.
“Your wife was never supposed to find anything.”
Not denial.
Grant stepped closer.
“What was supposed to happen Thursday?”
Sloan stared at him.
He lowered his voice.
“You have one chance.”
Sloan laughed.
“And what will you do if you don't like my answer? Kill me in the room where you honeymooned with her?”
Grant's face became expressionless.
Sloan had spent a year around him.
She knew that expression.
The laughter died.
“Your father murdered mine.”
“That isn't Hannah's debt.”
“In your world, children inherit everything.”
“My child hasn't even been born.”
“Exactly.”
Grant felt something dark move through him.
He had killed men for less than the implication inside that word.
But Hannah's face stopped him.
No more blood.
No more stupidity.
He needed information.
“Where is she?”
Sloan shook her head.
“I don't know.”
“Who does?”
“My brother.”
Grant went still.
“Your brother is alive?”
“Yes.”
“Name.”
“Damian.”
The name meant nothing.
That was terrifying.
If a Mercer had operated near him without recognition, Grant's entire security network had failed.
“What does Damian want?”
“Your port access.”
“And Hannah?”
“Leverage.”
“My son?”
Sloan said nothing.
Grant stepped forward.
“Sloan.”
“He thinks a Whitmore heir guarantees compliance.”
Grant almost stopped breathing.
His phone vibrated again.
This time he answered.
“Nico.”
“Sir, your father is at the estate.”
“Keep him there.”
“There's more.”
“What?”
“We found a surveillance device inside the nursery.”
Grant closed his eyes.
“Anything else?”
“One in Mrs. Whitmore's car.”
His hand tightened around the phone.
“How long?”
“We don't know.”
“Lock the estate down. Nobody enters. Nobody leaves.”
“Yes, sir.”
Grant ended the call.
Then he looked at Sloan.
“You're coming back to New York.”
“No.”
“That wasn't a question.”
Sloan smiled.
“You're making the same mistake your father made.”
“What mistake?”
“Thinking I'm the dangerous Mercer.”
A knock sounded at the hotel door.
Grant turned.
His security man, Marco, stood outside.
“Boss.”
“What?”
“Car is ready.”
Grant looked back.
Sloan was holding her phone.
Not calling anyone.
Deleting something.
Grant crossed the room and took it.
She grabbed his wrist.
“Give it back.”
He looked at her hand.
She released him.
Grant opened the recent messages.
One thread had no saved name.
The newest message was from that morning.
G IS SUSPICIOUS.
The reply:
DOESN'T MATTER. THE WIFE IS ALREADY OUTSIDE HIS GRID.
Grant's blood ran cold.
He scrolled.
Another message.
ONCE WALTER MOVES HER, WE FOLLOW THE OLD MAN.
Grant looked up.
Sloan's face changed.
“You didn't know,” he said.
She said nothing.
“Your brother used you too.”
“I know what Damian is doing.”
“No.”
Grant held up the phone.
“You thought Hannah was still in Westchester.”
Sloan swallowed.
He was right.
Grant suddenly understood.
Sloan had helped build the plan.
But Damian had built another plan around hers.
“How is he tracking my father?”
She looked toward the door.
“Tell me.”
Nothing.
Grant handed the phone to Marco.
“Get every number, every location, every contact.”
Sloan finally moved.
“You can't keep me here.”
“No.”
Grant looked at her.
“The Italian police can.”
For the first time, she looked genuinely afraid.
Grant had no intention of hiding what she had done.
No private revenge.
No body in the Mediterranean.
Hannah had spent eight years begging him to understand that power without restraint was only another form of weakness.
He had never listened.
Now he did the one thing Sloan did not expect.
He called law enforcement.
By noon, Grant was on a private flight to New York.
He sat alone.
The seat opposite him remained empty.
Eight years earlier, Hannah had slept there with her head on his shoulder, laughing every time turbulence made him tighten his grip on her hand.
He opened his phone.
No messages from her.
He tried again.
Call.
Voicemail.
Again.
Nothing.
He opened old photographs.
Hannah in scrubs.
Hannah covered in flour at Christmas.
Hannah asleep beside newborn Ethan twelve years earlier because Rebecca had been too exhausted to stay awake after her emergency C-section.
Hannah beside Margaret at the hospital.
Hannah beside Walter's bed after his heart procedure.
Hannah everywhere.
Holding things together.
Grant suddenly realized he had more photographs of Hannah caring for his family than photographs of himself doing the same.
He had mistaken her constancy for permanence.
At Kennedy Airport, Walter was waiting.
Grant walked directly toward him.
“Where is she?”
Walter did not move.
“Safe.”
“Where?”
“No.”
Grant stopped.
Every man in the terminal seemed to sense the temperature change.
“You disabled my cameras.”
“Yes.”
“You helped my wife disappear.”
“Yes.”
“Where is my son?”
“With his mother.”
“Where?”
Walter looked at Grant with an expression Grant had never seen from him before.
Disappointment.
Not fear.
Not respect.
Not anger.
Disappointment.
“You left your pregnant wife alone while someone was tracking her.”
“I didn't know.”
“You didn't care enough to know.”
Grant's face hardened.
“Careful.”
Walter stepped forward.
“No. You be careful.”
The terminal went silent around them.
“You are not speaking to one of your soldiers. You are speaking to the father who spent half his life trying to keep you from becoming exactly this man.”
Grant lowered his voice.
“Where is Hannah?”
“I told her not to come home.”
“Why?”
“Because Adrian Mercer's son is hunting her.”
“I know.”
Walter's expression shifted.
“You know?”
“Sloan told me.”
“Then you understand why Hannah cannot be inside your security network.”
“My network can protect her.”
Walter laughed bitterly.
“Your network had cameras in her nursery.”
Grant flinched.
“Someone compromised us.”
“Yes.”
“And until you know who, I won't give you her location.”
Grant looked at his father.
“You think you can keep my wife from me?”
Walter's voice softened.
“No.”
“Hannah can.”
That hurt more.
Walter walked away.
Grant returned to the estate alone.
The house felt wrong before he entered.
No music from the kitchen.
No flowers Hannah replaced every Friday.
No maternity shoes beside the stairs.
The nursery door stood open.
He walked upstairs.
His wedding ring was not on the bed.
Hers was.
Beside it lay the letter.
Grant read it once.
Then again.
You chose her, so I gave you both.
His knees nearly failed beneath him.
Grant Whitmore had faced guns without blinking.
He had buried friends.
He had watched men die.
He had never understood helplessness until he sat on the edge of his own bed holding his wife's wedding ring.
Then he saw the final sentence.
If you find out what Sloan planned before you find me, maybe you'll understand why you may never see either of us again.
His phone rang.
Nico.
Grant answered.
“We traced the nursery camera.”
“To who?”
“Not Sloan.”
Grant stood.
“Who?”
A pause.
“Someone inside the Whitmore family security office.”
“Name.”
Nico's voice became grim.
“Rebecca's husband.”
Grant stopped breathing.
His sister's husband.
Ethan's father.
Daniel Collins.
Grant whispered,
“Where is Rebecca?”
May you like
Nico's silence gave him the answer before the words came.
“We can't find her.”
