GET OUT OF MY HOUSE! — The Rebecca Mercer Continuation

By midnight, every local news station had footage of the Northstar plant burning.

The first reports called it an industrial accident.

The second wave called it an attack. By morning, anonymous sources were claiming I had ordered the destruction of company records after losing control of the patent dispute.

Victor had been right.

Stories did not need to be true.

They needed to arrive first.

Lily and I watched the reports from a secure conference room at Daniel’s firm. Judith sat apart from us, wrapped in a gray blanket provided by paramedics. She had refused medical treatment for the bruise on her shoulder.

Eleanor Price appeared on television o

utside Northstar headquarters.

“We are cooperating fully with law enforcement,” she told reporters. “Production at all active facilities remains safe and operational. We have no evidence that Rebecca Mercer participated in the fire.”

No evidence.

The phrase was legally careful and emotionally useless.

My phone filled with messages from former employees, reporters, neighbors, and people I had not spoken to in twenty years. Some asked whether I was safe. Others asked whether I was a criminal.

Grant remained missing.

Victor remained missing.

The black ledger remained with them.

Lily stood at the window.

“Why would Grandpa name me?”

Judith answered before I could.

“Because Henry stopped trusting his sons.”

Lily turned.

“You knew.”

“I knew he changed something. I did not know the final beneficiary.”

“You were in the cabin. You witnessed the assignment. You helped Dad.”

Judith’s mouth tightened. “I did what I thought would keep the company in the family.”

“I am family.”

“You were a child.”

“I’m not a child now.”

Judith looked toward me as if I had trained Lily to speak with disrespect.

I felt no obligation to rescue her.

Daniel entered with Naomi and Elena. A uniformed detective followed them.

“We recovered security footage from a warehouse camera,” Elena said. “Victor and Grant exited the underground service tunnel six minutes after the explosion. A vehicle was waiting.”

“Was Grant walking?” Lily asked.

“Two men carried him.”

“Is he alive?”

“Yes, at least at that moment.”

The detective placed several photographs on the table. One showed a dark sedan leaving the property. Another captured part of the driver’s face.

Natalie Pierce.

Lily stared at it.

“She helped Victor?”

“Or Grant,” Elena said. “We do not know.”

I thought of Natalie in the boardroom, placing her keycard on the table, calculating the value of Grant without his title. I had believed she was leaving him.

Maybe she had only moved to the next powerful man.

Naomi opened a folder.

“We need to discuss the page Victor showed you.”

“The beneficiary clause,” I said.

“If authentic, it could change control of the Bennett Family Trust and any assets purchased through it. But a page on a video call is not proof.”

“Victor wants Lily,” Judith said.

Everyone looked at her.

“He always believed Henry cheated him. If Lily is the beneficiary, Victor will either force her to sign or prove she is unfit.”

“Unfit how?” Lily asked.

Judith hesitated.

Daniel answered.

“The trust language may include conditions.”

“What conditions?”

“We need the original.”

Lily began pacing.

“Dad knew the ledger was in the house. He told Victor. Does that mean he knew I was named?”

“Probably not,” I said. “If he knew, he would have spent years trying to control you more directly.”

She stopped.

“He did.”

The room quieted.

Lily sat down.

“When I graduated, Dad offered to manage my investment account. When I said no, he told me I was immature. Last year he asked me to sign a power of attorney in case I got sick. I refused.”

“Did he react strongly?” Elena asked.

“He didn’t speak to me for a week.”

Judith closed her eyes.

“What?” I demanded.

She shook her head.

“Judith.”

“Henry’s trust required the beneficiary to reach twenty-five before gaining independent control.”

Lily was twenty-four.

Her birthday was in six weeks.

Until then, someone else might have authority.

“Who is trustee?” Naomi asked.

“Mercer Fiduciary Services,” Judith whispered.

Victor.

The structure became clear.

Victor had controlled the trust while waiting for Lily to reach the age when she could remove him. The divorce triggered the patent assignment and the planned Northstar collapse. He intended to use the trust money before Lily gained control.

“Why wait until now?” Daniel asked.

“Because Grant delayed the divorce,” Judith said. “He wanted Natalie, but he also wanted Rebecca to leave without asking questions. Victor needed the marriage legally dissolved to activate the assignment.”

I looked at Judith.

“You knew all of it.”

“Not all.”

“Enough.”

Elena stepped between us before the argument could become useless.

“Victor has six weeks before Lily turns twenty-five. But he may move sooner because the scheme is exposed.”

A junior attorney entered and handed Daniel a tablet.

His expression darkened as he read.

“What happened?” I asked.

“Orion filed an emergency action in federal court. They attached copies of the ledger pages.”

“Already?”

“They are asking the court to recognize Victor as trustee and authorize an immediate sale of the patent to Orion.”

“Can he do that?”

“If the trust owns the patent.”

“It doesn’t.”

“The forged assignment says it does.”

Naomi took the tablet.

“The hearing is tomorrow morning.”

Lily laughed once, without humor.

“So a judge may give Victor my trust based on a forged document while he holds my father hostage?”

“Courts prefer evidence to dramatic summaries,” Naomi said. “We need Henry’s recording, Lily’s audio, and the original patent records.”

“We have Henry’s tape,” I said.

Daniel shook his head.

“Not anymore.”

I stared at him.

“The tape was logged into temporary evidence storage after the cabin incident. Someone presented a forged police transfer order and removed it two hours ago.”

Elena swore under her breath.

“Inside access?” I asked.

“Possibly.”

Victor was not improvising. He had built routes through banks, law firms, police procedures, and company systems. While Grant chased applause, Victor had accumulated doors.

My phone rang from an unknown number.

I answered on speaker.

Natalie spoke.

“Do not hang up.”

“Where is Grant?”

“Alive.”

“Where are you?”

“I cannot tell you.”

“You drove Victor away from the plant.”

“I drove the car. That does not mean I chose the passengers.”

Lily stepped toward the phone.

“Is my father hurt?”

“He was shot in the side. I stopped the bleeding.”

“Let me talk to him.”

“I can’t.”

“Why?”

“Because Victor separated us.”

Elena signaled for Daniel’s technicians to trace the call.

Natalie continued.

“Rebecca, Victor is not taking the ledger to Orion. He is using Orion as pressure. He wants Northstar for himself.”

“We know.”

“No, you know the surface. Orion believes it is buying the patent. Victor plans to use the purchase payment to empty the trust, then challenge the sale through another entity. He will keep the money and recover the technology.”

“Why tell me?”

“Because I made a mistake.”

“You had an affair with my husband.”

“That was not the mistake I meant.”

Lily flinched.

Natalie’s voice remained steady.

“Victor is my half-brother.”

Judith stood so quickly the blanket fell from her shoulders.

“That is impossible.”

“No, Judith. It is inconvenient.”

Natalie explained that her mother, Evelyn Shaw, had raised her and Victor alone. Victor was sixteen years older. He told Natalie their father had abandoned them. Years later, she discovered payments from Henry Mercer.

“Victor brought me into Northstar,” she said. “He told me Grant had stolen our father’s company. He wanted me close to him.”

“So you seduced Grant.”

“I allowed Grant to believe he seduced me.”

“And you helped plan the collapse.”

“At first.”

“Why change sides?”

“Because Victor does not intend to share anything. Not with me. Not with Grant. Not with Orion.”

A sound came through the line.

A door slamming.

Natalie lowered her voice.

“I can get you the original trust documents.”

“Where are they?”

“In a private archive beneath Mercer Fiduciary’s old office.”

“Why didn’t Victor destroy them?”

“He needs the originals until the court recognizes his authority. Copies may win a hearing. Originals move money.”

Elena wrote a question on paper and held it up.

Where is Grant?

I asked.

Natalie hesitated.

“Victor moved him to a medical suite at the old Lakeshore Hotel. Room 1806. But there are guards.”

“Why keep him alive?”

“Grant knows the access phrase for the trust’s emergency transfer account.”

Judith sank back into her chair.

I understood her expression.

“You know the phrase,” I said.

“No.”

“You know part of it.”

“Henry divided it. Grant received half. I received half.”

Victor needed both mother and son.

That was why Judith had been allowed to move freely until now. He expected her to come willingly to protect Grant.

Natalie spoke again.

“The archive is accessible tonight. After the hearing is scheduled, Victor will move the originals.”

“Send the address.”

“I will send more than that.”

My phone received a file.

A floor plan.

Before the call ended, Natalie said, “Rebecca, there is one thing Victor never told you about the trust.”

“What?”

“The forty-eight million is not the current balance.”

I looked at the statement.

“What is?”

“After twenty years of hidden investments, it controls assets worth nearly nine hundred million dollars.”

Judith made a sound like the air had been struck from her.

Natalie continued.

“And Northstar is only one of them.”

The call disconnected.

Daniel’s team had traced it to a public Wi-Fi network near the Lakeshore Hotel.

Elena began planning two operations: police would attempt to recover Grant while we went after the archive.

“You are not going,” she told Lily.

“This is my trust.”

“You are also the target.”

“I’m tired of being moved into safe rooms while everyone else decides what my name means.”

I expected fear in her voice.

I heard anger.

For the first time, she sounded like me.

At ten thirty that night, we arrived at the former Mercer Fiduciary office, a narrow stone building in the financial district that appeared abandoned above street level.

Natalie’s floor plan led us through a service entrance and down two flights of stairs.

The archive door required a six-digit code.

Judith entered Henry’s birthday.

Wrong.

She entered Grant’s.

Wrong.

Lily stepped forward and typed her own birthday.

The lock opened.

Inside, rows of black document boxes filled a climate-controlled vault.

We found the Bennett Family Trust files on the final shelf.

Naomi opened the first binder.

Original signatures.

Original seals.

Twenty years of transaction records.

Proof that my father’s name had been used without consent.

Proof that Victor had moved funds through Orion-linked accounts.

And the complete beneficiary clause.

Lily read it aloud.

“Upon attaining the age of twenty-five, Lily Rebecca Mercer shall assume full beneficial control, provided she has not been convicted of fraud, theft, financial misconduct, or an offense involving moral dishonesty.”

The room went still.

Victor did not need Lily’s signature.

He needed a criminal charge against her.

Elena’s phone rang.

She answered, listened, and looked at Lily.

“What is it?” I asked.

“Federal agents are at Daniel’s office.”

“Why?”

“They have a warrant for Lily’s arrest.”

Lily stared at her.

“For what?”

Elena turned the phone so we could see the charging summary.