Chapter 4 - THE TRUE HEIRI walked slowly up the carpeted steps toward the altar, pausing beside my mother’s framed photograph.
The severe concussion still pounded behind my temples like a muffled drum, but every breath I took felt crisp, clean, and entirely my own.
Director Vance dismissed the remaining agents to secure the perimeter and walked up the steps to stand beside me. He reached into his coat pocket and pulled out a heavy, notarized manila envelope stamped with the crimson seal of the Supreme Court.
"The federal freeze order went live across all domestic and offshore accounts at exactly 2:00 PM, Miss Mercer," Vance reported quietly, handing me the envelope. "Every dollar Vivian siphoned from Mercer Biomedical has been legally traced back to shell companies registered in her maiden name. Her personal assets are fully attached."
I opened the envelope, scanning the crisp legal text.
Six years ago, when my mother fell violently ill and passed away under mysterious circumstances—circumstances I had spent years quietly investigating with the help of federal forensic accountants—she left me instructions.
“Let them think they are winning, Claire,” my mother had told me on her deathbed. “Greed makes people sloppy. Give the wolf enough rope, and she will hang herself.”
"And my father?" I asked softly, not looking up from the papers.
Vance hesitated. "Mr. Mercer is legally implicated as an accomplice by omission. His assets are frozen pending a full audit. He has nowhere to go."
May you like
I looked down from the altar. My father was sitting alone in the front pew, his head buried in his hands, weeping silently into his handkerchief. All those years of trading his integrity for comfort, only to end up completely abandoned by the monster he invited into our home.
"Let him stay," I said coldly. "He can watch what happens when a real Mercer takes the wheel."
