Chapter 6 - THE BOY NAMED AFTER MY FATHER
We drove to Wisconsin with two cars and enough security to look like a government convoy.
Elena Hart opened her front door before we knocked.
She looked at Vincent.
Then me.
And said:
“You finally found each other.”
My heart stopped.
She knew.
Vincent stepped forward.
“Where is Michael Hayes?”
Elena’s eyes filled.
“Which one?”
The question confused me.
Then a teenage boy appeared behind her.
Tall.
Dark hair.
Gray eyes.
He looked like Vincent.
“Elena,” Vincent said slowly, “what did you do?”
She invited us inside.
The truth came out in fragments.
Michael Hayes—my father—did not die.
Dominic ordered Victor Dane to kill him.
Victor refused.
Instead, he smuggled Michael out of Chicago under a false identity.
My pulse raced.
“Why?”
“Because Michael saved Victor’s daughter years earlier.”
Elena clasped her hands.
“Victor owed him.”
“Where is my father now?”
Elena looked toward the boy.
“Dead.”
The word hit like a physical blow.
“When?”
“Ten years ago.”
Cancer.
A simple, ordinary death after years of hiding.
Michael had lived.
He had known about me.
He had wanted to return.
But Elaine was dead, Dominic controlled Chicago, and Victor warned him that coming back would expose me.
“So he abandoned me.”
Elena shook her head.
“No.”
She went upstairs.
When she returned, she carried a wooden box.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
All addressed to Claire Mercer.
My father had written every year.
Birthdays.
Christmases.
Graduations he imagined.
He never mailed them.
“He believed silence kept you alive.”
I started crying before I could stop myself.
Vincent stepped away, giving me space.
Then I looked at the teenage boy.
“Who is he?”
Elena smiled sadly.
“My grandson.”
Michael.
My father’s son?
“No.”
She shook her head.
“Michael is Arthur’s grandson.”
Vincent’s face changed.
Elena looked at him.
“Your father had another son.”
Vincent went rigid.
“My father?”
“Before he met your mother.”
The boy’s father had died young.
Elena raised him.
“So he’s my half-brother’s son?”
“Yes.”
Vincent stared at the teenager.
Another hidden Hayes.
Another secret Dominic never mentioned.
Then Elena’s expression changed.
“You need to understand why Dominic is searching now.”
“Because of the ledger.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“The ledger can hurt him.”
She looked directly at me.
“But Claire can destroy him.”
I swallowed.
“How?”
Elena walked to a cabinet and removed a sealed envelope.
“Because Michael left something in your name.”
Inside was a legal document.
Not money.
Not property.
Voting shares.
Thirty-two percent of Hayes Development Group.
The legitimate company behind Dominic’s empire.
My father had transferred them to a trust before disappearing.
Beneficiary:
Claire Mercer.
Vincent looked at me in shock.
May you like
I wasn’t just a cleaning woman inside Hayes Tower.
On paper, I owned nearly a third of it.
