Chapter 12 - Midnight at Briarcrest
Federal agents wanted to control the exchange.
I agreed.
But Julian knew the mansion better than any tactical team.
For years, he had installed hidden passages, backup systems, and private access points.
At 11:50 p.m., I entered the foyer alone carrying a document folder.
The same marble floor where he threw me out now reflected the soft light above.
Rain hit the windows.
My suitcase still sat near the door where staff had placed it after recovering it from the driveway.
At midnight, the front lock clicked.
Julian entered through the service corridor.
He wore a dark suit.
His hair was wet.
A gun rested against my mother’s back.
Anne Mercer looked fragile but alert.
When our eyes met, twenty-nine lost years stood between us.
“Give him the folder,” she said.
Julian smiled.
“She always was practical.”
“You knew she was alive.”
“Only recently.”
“Beatrice hid it from you.”
“She hid everything.”
His bitterness was real.
But not remorse.
He blamed Beatrice for deceiving him, not for what they had done to me.
I held up the folder.
“Let her walk to me.”
“First, tell me what’s in the schedule.”
“You already know.”
“I want to hear you say it.”
“You own nothing.”
The words struck him.
The same words he had thrown at me in the rain.
His jaw tightened.
“The marriage gives me rights.”
“Our marriage is invalid.”
He froze.
Naomi had discovered the legal truth.
Because Julian was my biological half-brother, the marriage was void from the beginning.
He had no spousal claim.
No inheritance claim.
No guardianship claim.
Nothing.
“You’re lying.”
I opened the folder.
The court declaration was real.
Julian read the first page.
His hand began shaking.
Behind the walls, federal agents listened through hidden microphones.
He grabbed my mother harder.
“You ruined me.”
“You were ruined the day you agreed to marry a woman you knew had been chosen for her property.”
“I didn’t know we were related.”
“But you knew the marriage was a strategy.”
He did not deny it.
My mother stepped on his foot.
Julian cursed.
The gun moved away from her spine.
I threw the folder toward his face.
She dropped.
Agents broke through the side doors.
Julian fired once into the ceiling.
Then ran toward the hidden cellar passage.
Nathan had already sealed it.
Julian turned back.
Trapped.
He pressed the gun beneath his chin.
My mother whispered, “Don’t.”
Not because she forgave him.
Because she refused to let him escape consequences.
Julian looked at me.
“Tell them to back off.”
“No.”
“I’ll do it.”
“You’ve always wanted someone else to save you from what you chose.”
His hand shook violently.
Then Beatrice’s voice came through the house speakers.
“Put the gun down, Julian.”
Everyone froze.
She was inside the security system.
“You were never supposed to survive the week,” she told me.
The foyer doors locked.
Metal shutters dropped over the windows.
A countdown appeared on the alarm panel.
Six minutes.
May you like
Beatrice had triggered the mansion’s gas system.
👉 Julian was trapped with Claire and Anne inside the house he tried to steal, while Beatrice activated a deadly countdown designed to erase every surviving Mercer heir.
