Chapter 4
Mercer named four men.
All old.
All loyal to Arthur before they were ever loyal to me.
They had not planned a coup.
Not yet.
They were discussing “transition.”
Another respectable word.
I asked what transition meant.
Mercer answered carefully.
“Gavin taking more internal command.”
I almost laughed.
“Why?”
“Because he has time.”
“So do I.”
“You have Ella.”
There it was again.
My daughter reduced to a defect in my schedule.
I stood.
Mercer did too.
Not from fear.
Habit.
Good.
I looked toward the doorway.
Ella was asleep now in my office.
Frosting still under one fingernail because she refused to let anyone scrub too hard.
I turned back.
“What happens to her if Gavin becomes head?”
Mercer frowned.
“Nothing.”
Arthur answered too quickly.
“She remains family.”
I looked at him.
“Where?”
Silence.
That was interesting.
“Where, Dad?”
His face tightened.
Gavin finally spoke.
“She would probably live with her mother’s relatives part of the year.”
My entire body went still.
Ella’s mother, Sofia, had died when our daughter was eighteen months old.
Her relatives lived three states away.
Ella barely knew them.
“You discussed sending my daughter away.”
Gavin sighed.
“You’re doing it again.”
“What?”
“Turning every practical decision into an emotional wound.”
I stared.
“How long?”
Arthur looked away.
That answered.
“How long have you been discussing my daughter leaving my house?”
Mercer closed his eyes.
“Six months.”
Six months.
I had kissed Ella goodnight every evening while men downstairs debated how much easier I would be to manage if she slept somewhere else.
I looked at Mercer.
“Did you agree?”
“No.”
“Did you speak?”
He hesitated.
“No.”
I nodded.
“Then tonight is your first useful decision.”
That hurt him.
Good.
Arthur struck the table.
“You’re humiliating everyone who built this family.”
“No.”
I looked at him.
“I’m asking why they needed a preschooler removed to feel safe around her father.”
Silence.
No one had a respectable word for that.
Then Mercer whispered something worse.
“It started before Sofia died.”
My chest tightened.
My wife.
Ella’s mother.
“What started?”
Mercer looked at Arthur.
May you like
“The argument over whether you should ever have married her.”
And suddenly the conspiracy reached backward into the marriage I had spent years believing my father merely disliked.
