Chapter 3
I replayed that sentence three times.
I’m your sister.
Each time it sounded less possible and more familiar.
Sarah had my mother’s eyes.
That was what I had recognized.
Marco saw it too.
“Daniel…”
“I know.”
Lily sat perfectly still.
Finally she whispered, “Does that make you my uncle?”
I looked at her.
Five years old.
Worn coat.
Old shoes.
A backpack held together by repaired seams.
She had carried two six-month-old babies into a grocery store because nobody else would feed them.
If Sarah was telling the truth, all three children were Mercer blood.
And they had been starving ten minutes from one of my businesses.
“Yes,” I said.
Lily stared.
Then she looked at Owen.
Then Noah.
“So you’re theirs too?”
“Yes.”
Her lip trembled.
“Do you have food?”
That question destroyed whatever doubt remained inside me.
Not money.
Not a mansion.
Food.
I crouched.
“As much as they need.”
She nodded as though I had just answered the most important question in the world.
Maybe I had.
Sarah’s recording continued.
“My father wasn’t your father biologically. Frank Carter raised me after Vincent Mercer paid him to keep quiet.”
Marco looked sharply at me.
Vincent Mercer.
My father’s younger brother.
My uncle.
Still alive.
Still one of the oldest men inside my organization.
Sarah continued.
“Vincent has spent my entire life making sure you never find me.”
My hands tightened.
Why?
Then she answered.
“Because once your father died, Vincent became your closest adult blood relative.”
I understood immediately.
Proximity.
Influence.
The uncle beside the young boss.
The man everyone assumed would stand closest if I ever had no children of my own.
Sarah and her children changed that picture completely.
Not because I cared about some ancient inheritance rule.
May you like
Because old Mafia men did.
And Vincent had apparently been protecting his position for decades.
