Chapter 9
I spun the wheel, the tires spitting gravel. As I pulled out onto the road, she stood there, watching us. She didn’t stop us. She let us go. My mind raced. Why?
Then it struck me. She wasn’t chasing us because she didn’t have to. She had people waiting. I checked the rearview mirror. A pair of headlights, far back, tracking us.
“She’s following us,” Elodie said.
I pressed the gas. The road was treacherous. The headlights remained, a persistent presence. I thought about the key. I realized then that my father hadn't left me a secret; he had left me a weapon. And she was terrified of the truth.
“Declan, look out!” Elodie screamed.
A black SUV surged out from a side road, forcing me into the ditch. The truck slammed into a tree. Silence followed. I gasped for air, turning to Elodie. She was shaking, clutching her stomach, but breathing. Thank God.
The door of the SUV opened, and a man in a tactical vest stepped out. “Declan Mercer,” he said. “Hand over the key.”
I looked at the dashboard. My hand brushed against the tire iron I kept under the seat. It was useless, but it was all I had. I gripped it. “Go to hell,” I whispered.
He lunged. I swung, but he barely flinched. He dragged me out, throwing me into the mud. He waited, his eyes cold. “The key, Declan. Don’t make this any harder.”
I reached up and unclasped the chain. I held it out. But just as he took it, I saw something in the distance. A helicopter. My mother’s backup. The man turned to look. In that split second, I lunged. I knocked him off balance, the key flying from his hand into the woods.
He snarled and went for his sidearm. I ran. I didn’t look back. I ran until I couldn’t breathe, until the world was just a blur of shadows. I had lost the key. I had lost the truck. I had lost Elodie. But as I crouched there, I realized something. She would never find the key. And as long as she couldn't find it, she was terrified. I was the hunter now.
I hiked through the night to the city. I didn’t have a car or a cent, but I had the name. I crept into the estate through the pump house, made my way to the study, and found the loose panel my father had told me about. Inside the lead-lined box were the files. Logs, bank records, medical reports for the pills—proof of her crimes.
“I wondered how long it would take you to find that,” she said from the doorway.
She walked in with two men in suits. “You really were always your father’s son,” she smiled.
“I’m not a boy anymore,” I said, holding up my phone. “The digital copies of these files were sent to a server the moment I opened that box. It’s over.”
The room went silent. The mercenaries looked at each other and walked out. She was alone. “You’ve killed the Mercer name,” she whispered.
“No,” I said, stepping past her. “You killed it. I’m just burying the body.”
I walked out of the estate and didn't look back. I walked to a phone booth and called Elodie. “I’m coming home,” I said.
May you like
The Mercer name was a memory. But we were the ones who would go on. I was finally Declan. And for the first time, that was enough.
The End.
