Chapter 1
My three daughters called another woman Mama in perfect unison.
That was the moment my engagement ended.
Lily’s bread was on the floor.
Grace’s plate had been pushed beyond her reach.
Emma sat silently crying in her high chair.
Bianca stood over them.
“Call me Mama, or none of you eat.”
Then Hannah Mercer hurried past carrying a tray.
All three girls stopped crying.
Three identical faces turned.
Six little hands lifted.
“Mama… Mama.”
Hannah dropped everything.
Glassware struck the floor.
I stepped out of the private dining room.
Nobody had known I returned early.
Bianca’s face lost color.
I moved toward Hannah.
Marco blocked me.
He shoved me hard.
Then punched me.
I staggered one step.
He swung again.
I slipped the strike and hit him once.
Marco crashed backward through the wine-presentation crates.
Bianca grabbed Hannah’s arm.
“Get away from them.”
Lily screamed.
I tore Bianca’s hand away.
She slapped me.
I answered once.
She went backward into the floral stands.
Lily immediately crawled to Hannah and wrapped both arms around her leg.
Not mine.
Hers.
That mattered.
My security chief, Elias Ward, appeared beside me.
He held out a phone.
“Boss.”
On-screen was an old staff photograph from St. Catherine’s Hospital.
A man stood in the second row.
Hannah stared.
Her face changed.
“My father.”
Elias nodded.
“Samuel Mercer. Night security.”
I looked at Hannah.
Samuel Mercer had disappeared forty-eight hours after my wife Elena died in that hospital.
No resignation.
No body.
Nothing.
I turned the screen toward her.
“Your father vanished two days after my wife died.”
Hannah’s breathing changed.
Behind us, my daughters kept whispering:
“Mama.”
I looked at her.
“What did he know?”
Hannah stared at the photograph.
Then whispered:
“The night before he disappeared, he came home covered in blood.”
May you like
Bianca went completely still.
And that told me Hannah’s answer mattered to her too.
