Chapter 4 - THE BREAK-IN
Emergency lights flooded the hallway.
Security alarms began screaming.
Adrian moved instantly.
“Stay with Noah!”
Elena pulled the boy close.
Two guards rushed toward the east corridor.
A crash came from Adrian’s office.
Someone had entered through a service door.
By the time the backup generator restored power, Adrian’s desk had been torn apart.
The DNA report was gone.
So was an old file Elena had brought with her.
But Vanessa was still inside the mansion.
Adrian found her standing calmly near the staircase.
“You arranged this.”
“Prove it.”
Adrian called security.
Camera footage showed a masked intruder entering through a maintenance gate.
The gate required an internal access code.
Only five people knew it.
Adrian.
His head of security.
The estate manager.
Vanessa.
And Adrian’s longtime attorney, Charles Mercer.
Charles.
The name immediately troubled Adrian.
Charles had handled Noah’s adoption.
He had also handled Adrian’s marriage to Vanessa.
And six years earlier, he had overseen legal matters involving Adrian’s father.
Adrian called him.
No answer.
Again.
Nothing.
Elena came downstairs after Noah fell asleep.
She found Adrian staring at his phone.
“Who is Charles Mercer?”
Adrian looked at her.
“Someone I trusted with my life.”
Elena’s expression changed.
“I know that name.”
“How?”
She searched her memory.
Then she remembered the hospital paperwork.
“One of the forms Vanessa made me sign.”
“There was another signature.”
“Whose?”
Elena looked at him.
“Charles Mercer.”
Adrian immediately called his security team.
“Find him.”
Twenty minutes later, they received an answer.
Charles’s house was empty.
His car was gone.
His passport was missing.
But something remained behind.
A photograph.
It showed Vanessa standing outside St. Matthew’s Hospital six years earlier.
Beside her was Charles.
And in Charles’s arms was a newborn baby.
On the back someone had written a date.
May you like
October 17.
Noah’s birthday.
