Chapter 7 - The Secret Harrison Mercer Sold
The bullet missed Mateo’s heart by three inches.
It struck his shoulder.
By midnight, doctors said he would recover.
Sienna sat beside his hospital bed.
“You ruined my dress.”
Mateo opened one eye.
“You tackled me.”
“You’re welcome.”
“Very romantic.”
“You were bleeding on me.”
He smiled weakly.
Then his expression changed.
“You saw the shooter?”
“No.”
“Target?”
“You.”
Mateo closed his eyes.
The implication was obvious.
Someone needed him dead before the marriage.
Or before his shares transferred.
Lorenzo entered.
“We found the firing position.”
“Shooter?” Mateo asked.
“Gone.”
Sienna stood.
“What did they leave?”
Lorenzo handed her a shell casing.
47 had been scratched into the metal.
The number was no longer merely evidence.
It was a signature.
Someone wanted them thinking about Camille.
Harrison arrived under guard the next morning.
Sienna confronted him privately.
“Tell me everything.”
He looked older than he had a week earlier.
“I can’t undo what I did.”
“No.”
“I thought I could fix it before you knew.”
“That sentence describes my entire childhood.”
He flinched.
Good.
She needed him to.
Harrison admitted discovering false insurance claims six years earlier.
Evelyn had suspected the scheme before her death.
After Camille approached him, Harrison tried to help her collect evidence.
Charles Vale discovered them.
Then Dominic’s network threatened Sienna.
Harrison began borrowing money to replace stolen company funds while quietly moving evidence.
“Why Lorenzo?”
“Because Dominic feared him.”
“And you offered me as payment?”
Harrison looked ashamed.
“No.”
Sienna stared.
“Lorenzo proposed the marriage?”
“No.”
“Then who?”
Harrison swallowed.
“Vale.”
The room became very still.
Vale had planted the idea.
A marriage between Mercer and Costa would consolidate the exact assets Dominic’s network wanted.
But Lorenzo had changed the groom from himself to Mateo.
That had disrupted the plan.
“Why did Vale want me married to Lorenzo?”
“Because if you married Lorenzo, a provision in an old Mercer trust activated.”
Sienna frowned.
“What provision?”
“Your mother created it.”
Harrison explained.
Evelyn had quietly transferred controlling voting rights in Mercer Shipping to Sienna years ago.
The rights activated either on Sienna’s thirty-first birthday—
or upon marriage.
Sienna felt the floor shift beneath her.
“I already control Mercer?”
“Once you marry.”
“And Vale knew.”
“Yes.”
“He expected to control me through Lorenzo?”
“He expected Lorenzo to die.”
Sienna stared at him.
Then Vale could manipulate a grieving widow through Harrison’s debt.
But Lorenzo had substituted Mateo.
The entire plan had fractured.
Now someone wanted Mateo dead before the marriage.
Sienna left Harrison and found Lorenzo.
“You knew about my mother’s trust?”
“No.”
She believed him.
That surprised her.
Mateo joined them with his arm in a sling.
“So we get married.”
Lorenzo turned.
“No.”
Mateo ignored him.
“If marriage activates her control, she can audit every Mercer transaction.”
“And expose North Atlantic,” Sienna said.
“Exactly.”
Lorenzo’s expression darkened.
“It also paints a target on both of you.”
Mateo smiled without humor.
“I was shot yesterday. I think the paint is already dry.”
Sienna looked at him.
“This marriage was supposed to be a transaction.”
“It still can be.”
“And afterward?”
“We decide afterward.”
No promises.
No fake romance.
She respected that.
The wedding was moved forward.
Five days.
Private ceremony.
Maximum security.
That night, Sienna received an encrypted email.
No sender.
One attachment.
A photograph.
Camille.
Alive.
Holding that morning’s newspaper.
Below it were six words.
DON’T MARRY MATEO. HE DOESN’T KNOW.
Sienna stared at the message.
A second arrived.
It contained an address.
Then a third.
COME ALONE OR HE NEVER LEARNS WHY I LEFT.
Sienna reached for her coat.
May you like
Behind her, the bedroom door clicked.
Someone had already entered the room.
