Chapter 10 - Naomi’s Bloodline
Naomi sat down hard.
“That’s impossible.”
Keene opened an old legal file.
Naomi’s birth certificate listed a father named Daniel Reed.
A second sealed record showed Daniel Reed had changed his name after entering a witness-protection arrangement.
His new identity was Richard Sloan.
The same judge who had protected Julian and Beatrice.
Naomi had spent her career believing her father died in a construction accident.
Instead, he had abandoned her mother, changed identities, and built a judicial career serving the Vale network.
Naomi stared at the document for a long time.
Then she stood.
“This changes nothing.”
“It changes everything,” Vanessa said.
“No. It explains why Anne warned Claire. It does not make me him.”
I believed her.
But belief was no longer enough.
We needed proof.
Naomi volunteered to withdraw from my case.
I refused.
“Your father’s crimes are not yours.”
“He may use me against you.”
“Then we use you against him first.”
We arranged a meeting.
Naomi called Sloan from a number he did not recognize.
She told him she had discovered who he was.
His silence confirmed it.
Then he said, “You should have stayed ignorant.”
Naomi’s hand shook.
“You let me believe you were dead.”
“I protected you.”
“You protected yourself.”
Sloan agreed to meet at an abandoned courthouse annex.
Federal investigators wired Naomi.
I watched from a surveillance van.
Sloan arrived alone.
He looked older than the television images.
He stared at Naomi with something close to grief.
“You have your mother’s eyes.”
“You don’t get to say that.”
He offered her a deal.
Walk away from Claire.
Surrender the succession schedule.
Receive $10 million and a protected position after the trust transferred.
Naomi asked the question we needed.
“Why does Beatrice care so much about Claire’s daughter?”
Sloan glanced toward the windows.
“Because the child can reopen every Mercer account.”
“And?”
“And expose the original beneficiaries.”
“Who are they?”
Sloan leaned closer.
“Julian is not a Vale.”
My breath stopped.
According to Sloan, Beatrice had adopted Julian as an infant after arranging the disappearance of his biological mother.
His birth identity connected him to the Mercer line.
He was not only my husband.
He was my father’s illegitimate son.
My half-brother.
The world tilted.
Naomi stepped back in horror.
Sloan continued.
“Beatrice raised him to marry you and consolidate both branches of the estate.”
The marriage had been designed before I ever met Julian.
Every romantic gesture.
Every coincidence.
Every introduction.
Manufactured.
I felt physically ill.
Then Sloan noticed the wire beneath Naomi’s collar.
He grabbed her.
Agents rushed the annex.
Sloan pulled a gun.
Naomi twisted free.
A shot struck the wall.
Agents tackled him.
As they handcuffed him, he laughed.
“You still don’t understand.”
He looked toward the surveillance camera.
“Claire’s baby is not Julian’s child.”
My stomach tightened.
He smiled.
May you like
“She belongs to Harrison Mercer’s other heir.”
👉 Claire had just learned Julian was her half-brother, but Sloan’s final claim suggested the identity of her unborn child’s father had been manipulated from the beginning.
