Chapter 12 - Targeted Bloodline
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My jaw dropped. "Walter Mercer’s daughter?"
The woman pulled back her hoodie, revealing sharp, hollow cheeks and dark, furious eyes. "You ruined my father's life, Mason Sloane!" she spat, her voice echoing violently off the bare brick walls. "You and your pathetic company!"
"Sarah, I had no idea—"
"Shut up!" she screamed, drawing a syringe filled with a clear, amber liquid from her coat pocket. "My father was an honest man! He owned this entire block! But your partner blackmailing him, and your father paying him off, destroyed his sanity! He lived the rest of his life in fear, believing your company was going to murder him!"
"Your father took my father's hush money!" I said, taking a cautious step forward. "He signed a confession!"
"Because Daniel forced him to!" Sarah wept. "And then Daniel came back to me three months ago! He told me the truth! He told me that my father hid the original property deeds—deeds that prove this entire block belongs to the Mercer estate, not Sloane Infrastructure!"
I turned my eyes toward Daniel. "You used her."
Daniel grinned, wiping a speck of dust from his revolver barrel. "Of course I used her, Mason. Sarah here is a brilliant toxicologist at St. Catherine's. She had access to the exact biological agents I needed to draw you out."
"You lied to her, Daniel," I said firmly, keeping my eyes locked on the scarred man. "You told her Walter hid deeds here. But Walter didn't hide deeds in this wall."
Daniel’s smile faltered for a fraction of a second. "What are you talking about?"
"Walter Mercer didn't hide anything," I said, reaching into my suit jacket.
Sarah instantly raised her syringe, and Daniel raised his gun. "Don't move, Mason!"
"Look at the ledger in Box 417!" I yelled, pointing at the crate on the floor. "Walter Mercer was never the real owner of this block! Sixteen years ago, Daniel, you didn't blackmail Mercer to get this land for our company. You blackmailed him because you discovered who actually owned the title!"
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I pulled a yellowed paper from my pocket—the letter from Box 417 that Detective Ruiz had handed me at the warehouse.
"The original owner of this land wasn't Walter Mercer," I declared, my voice echoing with absolute authority. "It was Claire’s father. Arthur Dawson."
