PART 1 - Ten Days Left

Ten days.

That was all the doctor believed my six-year-old twins had left, and for the first time in my life, all the money, guns, fear, and power attached to the Mercer name meant absolutely nothing. By three that afternoon, while death waited inside my mansion, a penniless woman stood outside my gates refusing to leave—and I had no idea she was about to change everything.

Hours earlier, Dr. Franklin Yates had stood beside me in the private medical suite of my Chicago estate.

Beyond the glass, Jonah and Blythe slept holding hands.

“We’ve pushed treatment as far as their bodies can take it,” he said. “Their blood counts aren’t recovering.”

I kept my eyes on my children. “How long?”

His silence answered before his mouth did.

“Maybe ten days, Lawson.”

Ten days.

I had watched powerful men shake when I entered a room. I had bought loyalty, crushed enemies, and built

walls high enough to keep almost anyone out.

But I couldn’t threaten leukemia.

When I entered the twins’ room, Jonah slowly opened his eyes.

“Dad?”

“I’m right here.”

Blythe stirred beside him. Her voice was barely a whisper.

“Daddy, if I go first, can Jonah come with me?”

My chest locked.

I took her hand, careful not to squeeze those fragile fingers.

“Nobody’s going anywhere.”

She stared at me.

“Mommy went.”

Genevieve.

Two years after burying my wife, I still couldn’t hear that word without feeling the wound reopen.

Jonah tugged weakly at my sleeve. “Can I sleep with Bly tonight? So she isn’t scared?”

“You can sleep anywhere you want.”

By noon, breakfast sat untouched.

The mansion had gone unnaturally quiet. Servants whispered. Guards moved carefully through corridors. Outside stood twelve-foot walls, cameras, reinforced glass, hidden wire, weapons, and enough security to stop an army.

None of it could

protect my children from their own blood.

At three that afternoon, Prescott Hale entered my office.

“She’s still outside.”

I looked up. “Who?”

“The woman Odette mentioned. The caregiver applicant.”

“We’re not hiring.”

“I told her.”

“Then remove her.”

Prescott didn’t move.

That bothered me.

“What is it?”

“She says she has nowhere to go. No money. No relatives. Nothing except what she’s wearing.”

“That isn’t my problem.”

“There’s something else.”

His voice had changed.

My phone sat beside reports warning that Crosby Vane’s men had been seen near my south fence. Normally, that threat would have consumed my attention.

Now I barely looked at it.

Prescott stepped closer.

“She knows about Jonah and Blythe.”

I froze.

“What exactly does she know?”

He met my eyes.

“She says she knows they’re dying.”

The room seemed to shrink around me.

My children’s condition was guarded more carefully than most of my

business secrets. Doctors had signed agreements. Staff had been warned. Security controlled every entrance.

Almost nobody knew.

I stood.

“Bring her to me.”

Prescott hesitated.

Then he said the words that made my blood run cold.

“Lawson, she says she didn’t come here looking for a job.”

The alarm tore through the mansion like a scream.

For two years, I had built my entire life around preventing that sound.

The Mercer estate was designed like a fortress. Cameras watched every corner. Guards monitored every entrance. The walls surrounding my property were reinforced, the gates were controlled by biometric locks, and every person who worked under my roof had been investigated more thoroughly than most politicians.

Nothing entered without my permission.

Nothing left without my knowledge.

Yet someone had crossed the south gate.

I looked at Clara Whitmore.

She wasn’t afraid.

That bothered me more than the alarm.

Most people who stepped into my world reacted the same way. They saw the security, the armed guards, the wealth, the reputation.

They became nervous.

They became careful.

Clara looked like she had been expecting this moment.

“Who are they?” I demanded.

Her eyes remained fixed on the hallway leading toward my children’s rooms.

“The people who have been waiting for you to find out the truth.”

I stepped closer.

“You walked into my house, brought me a letter from my dead wife, and now you’re telling me someone is attacking because of something Genevieve discovered?”

“Yes.”

“And you expect me to believe that?”

“No.”

Her answer stopped me.

I studied her face.

“You don’t?”

Clara shook her head slowly.

“No. I expect you to believe what you see.”

Another explosion of movement came through the mansion. Guards shouted into radios. Footsteps thundered across marble floors.

Prescott entered the room with a weapon drawn.

“Lawson, we have movement near the medical wing.”

My entire body went cold.

The medical wing.

My children.

Every instinct I had built over decades took control.

I stopped being a father for one second.

I became the man everyone feared.

“Lock down the house.”