Chapter 2 - THE UNTHINKABLE DISCOVERY
The local paramedics arrived within fifteen minutes, accompanied by two Greenwich police officers. While the medics evaluated Maria in the kitchen for rope burns and extreme distress, I stood in the foyer with Officer Vance and Officer Miller.
Vanessa had already called her high-priced Manhattan defense attorney, Arthur Pendelton. She stood near the grand staircase, her hands folded tightly, refusing to answer any questions until her counsel arrived.
“Mr. Mercer,” Officer Vance said, holding a notepad. “Your housekeeper states that Miss Thorne restrained her against her will and threatened her with open flame. Do you wish to press charges?”
“Absolutely,” I said without hesitation. “I want her off my property immediately.”
Vanessa took a sharp step forward, her eyes blazing. “Elijah, you are making a catastrophic mistake! You think you can throw me out like trash after everything we’ve built? You have no idea what you’re doing!”
“I know exactly what I’m doing, Vanessa,” I replied smoothly. “Or should I call you Vanessa Thorne?”
The name hit her like a physical blow. Her mouth snapped shut. She swallowed hard, her eyes darting toward the front door as if calculating her chances of running.
Once the officers escorted Vanessa outside to wait in her car for her attorney, I walked down the hall to my private study.
My father had built this house in 1994. Behind a floor-to-ceiling mahogany bookshelf lay a hidden security room—a feature my father insisted on after Mercer Aerospace began taking sensitive government contracts. The system ran on a local, hardwired server completely independent of the main house Wi-Fi. It recorded every room in the house twenty-four hours a day, storing encrypted footage on closed hard drives.
Only three people knew the passcode to the hidden door behind the bookshelf: myself, my head of security, and Maria.
I pressed the panel behind the third volume of an encyclopedia set. The mahogany wall clicked and swung open.
The small, dimly lit room contained six monitors and a rack of servers. Sitting on the leather chair in front of the console was a high-capacity USB flash drive plugged into the main drive bay.
Someone had been copying data.
I sat down, pulled up the access logs, and typed in my master credential. My heart hammered against my ribs as the system displayed the file transfers from the past forty-eight hours.
Vanessa hadn't just discovered the hidden room. She had brought an outside tech consultant into my home while I was in Europe.
I pulled up the recorded video from two nights ago.
On the screen, a man in a black tactical jacket was sitting at my desk, bypassing the encryption protocols on the Mercer Aerospace server. Vanessa was standing right behind him, holding a glass of wine, smiling as file after file was downloaded onto an external drive.
These were not just personal bank accounts or house records.
These were the blueprints for Mercer Aerospace’s next-generation autonomous drone navigation system—a classified technology worth hundreds of millions of dollars, contracted directly by the United States Department of Defense.
My stomach dropped. Vanessa wasn't just a fortune hunter pulling an inheritance scam. She was an industrial spy working for an international syndicate.
Further down the log, another video file caught my attention. It was timestamped at 2:00 PM today—just three hours before I arrived home.
I clicked play.
The video showed Maria entering the study to dust the bookshelves. She noticed the hidden door was slightly ajar. Curiously, she pushed it open and saw Vanessa standing inside, holding a notebook filled with scribbled passwords.
On the tape, Maria looked stunned. “Miss Vanessa? What are you doing in here? Mr. Mercer’s private files—”
Vanessa turned instantly, her expression cold and murderous. She grabbed Maria by the hair, dragged her out of the study, and forced her down the hall toward the grand foyer.
“You didn’t see anything, you ignorant old hag,” Vanessa’s voice came sharply through the room’s speakers. “If you say a word to Elijah, I will make sure you die in a state prison.”
“Mr. Mercer trusts me,” Maria cried out on the tape as Vanessa shoved her against the marble column. “He knows who you really are!”
“He doesn’t know anything!” Vanessa screamed, grabbing a roll of heavy packing rope from the utility closet. “He’s an arrogant, clueless fool who thinks money can buy love!”
I paused the video. My hands were shaking, not out of fear, but out of a dark, boiling rage.
She had used my feelings, violated my home, threatened the woman who helped raise me, and stolen state-level defense secrets from my company.
I pulled out my phone and dialed a private, unlisted number.
It rang twice before a deep, gravelly voice answered.
May you like
“Mercer. I thought you were in London.”
“Marcus,” I said, staring at Vanessa’s face frozen on the monitor. “Cancel my flight back to Europe. Call the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Tell Special Agent Vance that we have a treason-level breach at my estate—and the target is currently standing on my driveway.”
