Chapter 3 - The Funeral LieAdrian had negotiated billion-dollar acquisitions without raising his voice.
“Stay behind me.”
Ethan dropped beside Olivia.
“Mom!”
Adrian’s instinct screamed at him to go to her, but Marcus was already moving toward the doorway.
The shadow vanished.
Footsteps thundered down the stairwell.
Marcus reached the hall in time to see a man in a dark jacket disappear around the landing.
“I’m going after him.”
“No.”
Adrian’s voice stopped him.
“Olivia needs a hospital.”
Marcus looked back.
For a second, the former Marine in him clearly hated the decision.
Then he holstered the weapon and pulled out his phone.
“I’ll get security here and call an ambulance.”
“No ambulance,” Olivia whispered.
Adrian stared at her.
She looked nothing like the young woman he had buried in his memory.
There were fine lines at the corners of her eyes that hadn’t existed seven years ago.
A faded scar crossed her right wrist.
Another disappeared beneath her collar.
But she was Olivia.
The woman he had loved.
The woman whose death had hollowed out his life.
Adrian knelt beside her.
“Olivia.”
Her eyes searched his face as though confirming he was real.
“You got older.”
A broken laugh escaped him.
“So did you.”
For one second, something familiar passed between them.
Then Olivia winced.
Adrian’s expression hardened.
“Who did this?”
She looked at Ethan.
“Not here.”
“Why not an ambulance?”
“Because the last time I trusted a hospital, someone tried to finish what they started seven years ago.”
Adrian went still.
Marcus ended his call.
“I can have Dr. Reeves meet us at the Hale residence. Private entrance.”
Olivia reacted immediately.
“No Hale residence.”
Adrian heard the fear.
“My house is secure.”
“Your house is where this began.”
Ethan looked between them.
“Mom?”
Olivia gripped his hand.
“I’m okay.”
“You’re bleeding.”
“I know.”
Adrian removed his suit jacket and pressed it gently against the wound on her head.
She flinched.
He withdrew immediately.
“Sorry.”
Her gaze lingered on him.
“You still do that.”
“Do what?”
“Apologize when someone else is hurt.”
Adrian almost laughed at the cruelty of the observation.
“I spent seven years thinking you were dead.”
Olivia’s eyes filled.
“And I spent seven years thinking you chose to leave us there.”
The room fell silent.
Ethan looked at Adrian.
“What does that mean?”
“Later,” Olivia whispered.
“No.” Ethan’s voice shook. “Everyone always says later. Later is when bad things happen.”
Adrian looked at his son.
His son.
He still couldn’t make the word feel real.
“Then no more later.”
Olivia tried to sit.
Adrian helped despite her hesitation.
Ethan disappeared into the bedroom and returned with a worn backpack.
“We already packed.”
That frightened Adrian more than the blood.
“How long have you been expecting to run?”
Olivia answered quietly.
“Seven years.”
Marcus stepped toward the shattered window.
“Black sedan is gone. But whoever was here knew the layout.”
Olivia looked at Adrian.
“He works for your family.”
Adrian felt the first true chill of the night.
“Who?”
“I never learned his real name.”
“You’re telling me someone connected to the Hales kidnapped you?”
Her eyes sharpened.
“I’m telling you someone connected to the Hales tried to kill us.”
Adrian stood.
“Marcus, bring the SUV around the rear entrance.”
Marcus left without argument.
Adrian picked Olivia up.
She stiffened.
“I can walk.”
“You can barely stay conscious.”
“I survived seven years without you.”
The sentence struck exactly where she intended.
Adrian met her eyes.
“I know.”
Something in his answer softened her resistance.
Ethan grabbed the backpack.
The three of them moved toward the stairs.
Halfway down, Olivia whispered, “Your left.”
Adrian turned.
A man stepped from the third-floor landing.
Baseball cap.
Black gloves.
He lifted something metallic.
Adrian twisted, putting his body between the weapon and Olivia.
A dart struck the wall beside his shoulder.
Not a bullet.
A tranquilizer.
The attacker swore and reached for another.
Ethan screamed.
Adrian charged.
He hit the man hard enough to send both of them crashing into the railing.
The attacker drove an elbow into Adrian’s jaw.
Adrian staggered.
The man grabbed him by the shirt.
“You should’ve stayed away.”
Adrian recognized the voice.
Not the man.
The voice.
He had heard it somewhere before.
A meeting?
A hallway?
His childhood home?
The attacker shoved him backward and ran.
Marcus appeared below.
“Stop!”
The man jumped over the stair rail, landed painfully on the next flight, then smashed through the side exit.
Marcus pursued him.
Adrian started after them.
Olivia grabbed his sleeve.
“Don’t.”
“He knows something.”
“He wants you separated from Ethan.”
That stopped him.
Adrian turned toward the boy.
Ethan stood frozen.
The dart was embedded in the wall beside his face.
Adrian pulled him close before thinking.
Ethan resisted for half a second.
Then buried his face against Adrian’s chest.
Adrian closed his eyes.
Seven years.
Someone had stolen seven years of this.
He heard tires screaming outside.
Marcus returned moments later.
“Lost him. Motorcycle waiting in the alley.”
“Did you see his face?”
“No.”
Olivia whispered, “You wouldn’t recognize it anyway.”
Adrian looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because they change people.”
He didn’t understand.
Not yet.
They left through the rear entrance.
Adrian ignored the broken headlight and climbed into the SUV beside Olivia and Ethan.
“Where are we going?” Ethan asked.
“A place no one in my family knows about.”
Olivia frowned.
“You have a secret house?”
“A townhouse owned through an old college trust. Marcus is the only person who knows I still use it.”
“For girlfriends?” Olivia asked weakly.
Marcus coughed from the front seat.
Adrian almost smiled despite everything.
“No.”
Olivia looked away.
The answer appeared to matter more than she wanted it to.
Twenty minutes later, a doctor arrived through the townhouse garage.
Samuel Reeves had known Adrian since college and had treated several Hale executives discreetly over the years.
He examined Olivia in an upstairs bedroom.
Adrian waited outside with Ethan.
The boy sat at the edge of a leather chair.
He looked incredibly small in the enormous room.
“Are you really rich?” Ethan asked.
Adrian almost laughed.
“That’s what you want to know?”
“People at school said rich people have bowling alleys.”
“I don’t.”
“So you’re not that rich.”
Adrian smiled despite himself.
“I have been misled by my accountants.”
Ethan’s mouth twitched.
It was the first hint of a smile Adrian had seen.
Then the boy touched the bruise on his cheek.
Adrian’s expression changed.
“Who did that?”
Ethan immediately lowered his hand.
“Nobody.”
“Ethan.”
“Mom said not to tell you everything at once.”
“Why?”
“Because she said you wouldn’t know who to believe.”
Adrian leaned forward.
“Try me.”
Ethan looked toward the closed bedroom door.
“There’s a man named Uncle Raymond.”
Adrian’s blood ran cold.
He had one uncle named Raymond.
Raymond Hale.
His father’s younger brother.
Chairman emeritus of Hale Global.
The man who had raised Adrian after his mother died.
The man who stood beside him at Olivia’s funeral.
The man who had placed a hand on Adrian’s shoulder while two empty coffins were lowered into the ground.
“What about Uncle Raymond?”
Ethan’s eyes filled with hatred.
“He comes when Mom disobeys.”
Adrian stopped breathing.
“Raymond Hale?”
Ethan nodded.
“He says I should be grateful.”
“For what?”
“For letting me live.”
Dr. Reeves opened the bedroom door.
“Adrian.”
His tone was serious.
“Olivia has a fractured rib, severe dehydration, and signs of repeated trauma. She needs imaging tonight.”
Adrian rose.
“Can she talk?”
“For a few minutes.”
Adrian entered.
Olivia sat against the pillows.
Dr. Reeves closed the door.
Adrian didn’t bother easing into it.
“Ethan knows Raymond.”
Olivia’s face changed.
“So you’ve heard.”
“He says Raymond hurt you.”
“Raymond did much worse than hurt me.”
“Why?”
Olivia stared at him.
“Because your father discovered something about Hale Global the week Ethan was born.”
Adrian frowned.
“My father had a stroke.”
“He had help.”
The room seemed to tighten around him.
Olivia continued.
“Your father called me the night before you flew to London. He was terrified. He said there were offshore accounts, shell companies, medical contracts and missing millions.”
Adrian shook his head.
“My father was confused after the stroke.”
“The stroke hadn’t happened yet.”
Adrian stared at her.
“He called you before?”
“Yes.”
“Why you?”
“Because he didn’t trust anyone with the Hale name.”
That sounded like his father.
Painfully so.
Olivia reached beneath her shirt and removed a thin chain.
A tiny brass key hung from it.
“He told me that if anything happened to him, I should give this to you.”
Adrian touched the key.
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because the next morning Raymond arrived at the hospital.”
Her hands began to tremble.
“He knew about the call.”
Adrian’s stomach turned.
“What did he do?”
“He told me you had agreed to leave the country permanently. He showed me messages from your phone saying Ethan wasn’t yours.”
“I never—”
“I know that now.”
Adrian’s anger flashed.
“Olivia, I never sent anything like that.”
“I know.”
She looked toward the door.
“But seven years ago, I was twenty-seven, exhausted, terrified, holding a two-day-old baby, and your uncle had screenshots from your number.”
“What happened next?”
Olivia swallowed.
“Raymond offered to drive us somewhere safe.”
Adrian already knew the answer.
“You got into his car.”
“I thought he was helping us.”
Her voice cracked.
“We never reached the safe house.”
She closed her eyes.
“When I woke up, Ethan and I were inside another vehicle. The car they told you I was driving was already at Ravenswood Bridge.”
Adrian’s hands curled.
“They staged the accident.”
“Yes.”
“Why keep you alive?”
“I didn’t understand for years.”
“And now?”
Olivia looked directly at him.
“Because Raymond couldn’t find what your father gave me.”
Adrian touched the brass key.
“What does it open?”
“I don’t know.”
“You carried it seven years without knowing?”
“No.”
Olivia’s eyes moved to Ethan’s backpack.
“I only got it back three weeks ago.”
Adrian followed her gaze.
“How?”
“Someone broke into Raymond’s private office.”
“Who?”
“I did.”
Despite everything, Adrian almost smiled.
“Of course you did.”
“That’s why we were running tonight.”
Ethan suddenly shouted from the hallway.
“Dad!”
Adrian’s entire body reacted to the word.
He rushed out.
Ethan stood beside the townhouse security monitor.
One camera showed the empty street.
Another showed the garage.
A third showed a man standing directly outside the front gate.
He was elderly.
Gray-haired.
Wearing an expensive navy suit.
Adrian recognized him instantly.
Raymond Hale looked directly into the camera.
Then his phone rang.
Adrian answered.
His uncle’s voice was calm.
“You have something that belongs to me.”
Adrian stared at the monitor.
Raymond smiled.
“Give me the woman and the boy, Adrian.”
May you like
A pause.
“Or tomorrow morning, the entire world learns exactly why Olivia Mercer disappeared.”
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