The Fifty Dollars She Wouldn't Take Back

Thomas grabbed my arm.

"Back room. Now."

I pulled free.

"I'm not hiding."

"You have a seven-year-old standing beside you."

That changed everything.

I picked Lily up before she could protest and carried her behind the counter. Arthur led us through a reinforced door into his office.

Thomas followed.

"Lock it."

Arthur did.

Lily clung to my jacket.

"Is someone bad outside?"

I wanted to lie.

Instead I said, "I don't know yet."

Thomas checked the security monitor.

The man from the SUV entered the shop vestibule, found the front door locked, then looked directly into the camera.

He smiled.

Then left.

"Recognize him?" I asked.

Thomas shook his head.

I called my security chief, Marcus Hale.

"Send a team to Bell & Sons. Now."

"Problem?"

"Yes."

"Police?"

"Not yet."

I looked at Lily.

"Bring the car around the rear."

Thomas folded his arms.

"Private security won't solve this."

"Neither has eight years of silence."

That shut him up.

I inserted the memory card into Arthur's computer.

One folder appeared.

LILY.

Inside were dozens of videos.

Emily.

Alive.

My hand froze over the mouse.

The first file had been recorded seven years earlier.

I clicked.

Emily appeared holding a baby.

Lily.

"If you're watching this, Daniel, then I finally ran out of excuses."

I stopped breathing.

Emily looked older than I remembered but unmistakably herself.

"I need you to know the first thing before anything else. Lily is your daughter."

The room disappeared.

There was only that sentence.

Lily is your daughter.

I looked down.

The child beside me stared at the screen.

Then at me.

"What did Mama say?"

I couldn't speak.

Thomas answered softly.

"She said Mr. Mercer is your father."

Lily's face went blank.

"No."

I knelt.

"Lily—"

"No."

She backed away.

"My daddy doesn't know about me."

My chest cracked.

"That's what I thought too."

She stared.

"You're my daddy?"

"I think so."

"You think?"

I deserved that.

"We can make sure."

She hugged Mr. Buttons.

"Why didn't you come?"

There was no question I had ever faced in a boardroom that terrified me more.

"I didn't know."

Her lip trembled.

"You promise?"

"I promise."

She studied my face.

Then the monitor.

Emily continued.

"I left because someone threatened Daniel. I believed them. I was pregnant, scared, and stupid enough to think disappearing was the only way to keep everyone safe."

She described anonymous messages.

Photographs of me.

Threats against the baby.

A demand that she leave New York.

Then she said a name.

"Richard Mercer."

My uncle.

The man who had raised me after my father died.

The chairman who'd helped me build Mercer Capital.

My mentor.

Thomas whispered, "There it is."

I stared at him.

"You knew?"

"I suspected."

Emily continued.

"Richard told me Daniel's future depended on me disappearing. He said a child would destroy everything the Mercer family had built."

Rage hollowed me out.

Then another video began automatically.

Recorded three months ago.

Emily looked sick.

Very sick.

"If you're seeing this one, Lily probably did exactly what I hoped. She went after the bracelet."

She smiled faintly.

"She's stubborn like you."

My eyes burned.

"I have one request, Daniel. Don't turn this into revenge. Give Lily what neither of us managed to give her together. Give her a home where love isn't something she has to earn."

The video ended.

Nobody spoke.

Then Lily walked toward me.

She held out her teddy bear.

"Mr. Buttons wants to know something."

I swallowed.

"What?"

"Do you want to be my daddy?"

I broke.

Not dramatically.

No speech.

I simply pulled her into my arms.