My husband beat me so badly I ended up in the hospital, while my mother-in-law watched without lifting a finger. Before leaving me on the floor, she coldly said, “You deserved it!”

Silence stretched through the massive warehouse, thick and suffocating.

Then, from the deep shadows beyond the yellow spotlight, the heavy sound of footsteps echoed against the concrete floor.

Clack. Clack. Clack.

A tall figure stepped slowly into the pale circle of light.

He wore a long, dark trench coat, his face obscured by the brim of a low hat and the thick river fog drifting through the broken windowpanes above. He carried a heavy leather briefcase in his left hand.

My heart leaped into my throat. "Dad?" I breathed, taking a cautious step forward.

The man stopped ten feet away from me. He slowly raised his head, pulling back the brim of his hat.

The yellow light illuminated his face.

My breath caught in my lungs, and my blood turned to liquid ice.

It wasn't my father.

It was a man I had never seen before—a tall, distinguished man in his late fifties with cold grey eyes, a silver scar running across his left jawline, and an expensive signet ring gleaming on his finger.

He smiled, a cold, slow, terrifying expression that sent a wave of sheer dread straight down my spine.

"Hello, Ara," the stranger said, his voice deep, smooth, and laced with a thick European accent. "Your father was a very clever man. He knew you would follow the breadcrumbs all the way to the end."

He set the leather briefcase down on the concrete floor and reached into his coat pocket.

"Julian was a crude tool," the man continued softly, pulling out a sealed black envelope. "He thought he was playing for money. He didn't realize he was merely keeping you occupied until the master lease on Project Helios expired tonight."

I backed away toward the door, my hand reaching for my phone, but the warehouse doors behind me suddenly slammed shut with a deafening metallic boom.

The man in the spotlight didn't raise a weapon. He simply opened the black envelope, holding up an old, yellowed photograph taken thirty years ago.

The photograph showed my father standing beside the stranger—both of them wearing identical military intelligence uniforms.

"It's time you learned the truth about the Mercer family, Ara," the stranger whispered, stepping out of the light toward me. "Your father didn't vanish six years ago to hide from Julian."