Chapter 13
Vincent asked to speak with me privately.
I refused.
Sarah stayed.
So did Marco.
He hated that.
Good.
“I made mistakes,” Vincent began.
Sarah laughed softly.
“Mistakes.”
He looked at her.
“I kept you safe.”
“No.”
She shook her head.
“You kept me invisible.”
“I protected Daniel’s succession.”
I looked at him.
“I never asked you to.”
“You were a child.”
“So was she.”
Silence.
Vincent’s expression hardened.
“You don’t understand what would have happened if people knew your father had another child.”
“Then tell me.”
“Factions.”
“Maybe.”
“Challenges.”
“Maybe.”
“Men using Sarah against you.”
Sarah smiled bitterly.
“You did that yourself.”
That landed.
Vincent looked at me.
“I gave you stability.”
I thought about Lily at the register.
Eleven dollars.
Formula out of reach.
Two crying babies.
A five-year-old promising to repay me when she grew up.
“That stability cost too much.”
Vincent scoffed.
“Sentiment.”
I almost smiled.
“There it is.”
“What?”
“The word men use when family interferes with ambition.”
His face hardened.
“You sound like your father.”
“No.”
I looked at Sarah.
“Apparently I finally understand him better than you did.”
Marco lowered his eyes.
Vincent did not.
I removed him from every active Mercer channel that day.
No meetings.
No captains.
No influence through older men.
No private access to me.
He laughed when I told him.
“You think blood suddenly makes her trustworthy?”
I shook my head.
“No.”
Then I looked at Sarah.
“She earns trust like everyone else.”
Vincent seemed confused.
“Then why destroy decades over her?”
“I’m not.”
My voice stayed calm.
“I’m destroying what you built around hiding her.”
That distinction mattered.
May you like
Sarah did not need a throne.
She needed the right to exist without becoming someone’s threat.
