Chapter 4 - THE MAN WHO WASN’T DEAD
Samuel Price lived forty minutes away.
Not under another name.
Not inside some hidden fortress.
In a modest house near an old church.
Victoria had simply relied on the assumption that nobody would search for a dead man.
Alexander arrived with Daniel.
Marcus came too.
Samuel opened the door himself.
He was seventy-eight.
Thin.
Unsteady.
Very much alive.
When he saw Alexander, his face collapsed.
“Your mother finally told you.”
“No.”
Samuel looked confused.
Alexander stepped inside.
“Rebecca did.”
The old man sat.
He asked whether Rebecca was safe.
Alexander’s silence answered.
Samuel covered his face.
“She came here twice.”
“What did she want?”
“The truth about your father.”
Alexander sat across from him.
Samuel explained.
Edmund Sterling did not die from a sudden stroke in his study.
He collapsed during an argument with Victoria.
That much was true.
But he remained conscious for almost twenty minutes.
He wanted Alexander called.
Victoria refused.
“Why?”
Samuel looked toward Marcus.
Then Alexander.
“Because your father was going to tell you what happened to your uncle.”
Alexander frowned.
“What uncle?”
Samuel stared.
“You don’t know.”
No.
Alexander did not.
Edmund had a younger brother.
Thomas Sterling.
Alexander had heard the name once as a child.
He was told Thomas died before Alexander was born.
Another lie.
Thomas lived until Alexander was nineteen.
Then disappeared.
“Why?”
“Because Thomas opposed your father.”
Edmund wanted the family run through fear.
Thomas believed the old model would eventually destroy everyone.
He tried persuading several relatives to leave.
Edmund called it betrayal.
Victoria sided with Edmund.
Thomas was expelled from the family.
Not killed.
Not imprisoned.
Simply erased.
Photographs removed.
Name stopped.
Children told he died young.
Alexander stared.
“Where did he go?”
Samuel shook his head.
“Nobody knew.”
But Edmund learned something shortly before his own death.
Thomas had returned to the city.
He wanted to meet Alexander.
Victoria panicked.
“She thought Thomas would turn you against your father.”
Alexander laughed without humor.
“My father was dead twelve years later.”
“No.”
Samuel looked at him.
“Thomas returned before Edmund died.”
Alexander stopped.
Edmund planned to confess everything.
He told Victoria he regretted erasing his brother.
He wanted Alexander to meet him.
The argument began.
Edmund collapsed.
Victoria called no ambulance for eight minutes.
Samuel finally did it himself.
Alexander’s expression changed.
Eight minutes.
Not necessarily murder.
Enough to become unforgivable.
“Did those minutes kill him?”
Samuel shook his head.
“I don’t know.”
“Why fake your death?”
Samuel looked toward the floor.
“Because Rebecca found me.”
That made no sense.
He continued.
Victoria learned Rebecca had traced him.
She came to his house.
She begged him not to speak.
Samuel refused.
Then Victoria told him Alexander had become exactly like Edmund.
Powerful.
Suspicious.
Dangerous when betrayed.
Samuel believed her.
“She said if I told you I helped hide Thomas, you’d destroy my family.”
Alexander stared.
“So she frightened you.”
“Yes.”
“She told everyone you died.”
“Yes.”
“And you let her.”
Samuel looked ashamed.
“Yes.”
Marcus paced toward the window.
“This whole family was built by cowards.”
Samuel looked at him.
“Most families are built by frightened people pretending their fear is principle.”
Alexander remembered Rebecca.
Then Sophia.
His three-year-old daughter eating discarded bread because Victoria needed her frightened enough to stop talking.
Same pattern.
Different generation.
Samuel stood slowly.
“There’s something Rebecca found that I never saw.”
“What?”
“She found Thomas.”
Alexander froze.
“Alive?”
Samuel shook his head.
“He died five years ago.”
Alexander felt disappointment he had no right to feel for a man he never knew.
Then Samuel continued.
“But Thomas had a son.”
Marcus turned.
Alexander stared.
“What’s his name?”
Samuel answered.
“Julian.”
Alexander’s face hardened.
He knew a Julian.
Everybody did.
Julian Mercer.
May you like
The quiet security consultant who had helped Victoria reorganize the estate after Alexander’s ambush.
A man currently living inside Alexander’s home.
