Chapter 17 - The Lie Warren Saved for Last
Lucas did not speak until we reached a private courthouse room.
“Is there something you need to tell me?”
“No.”
I answered quickly because it was true.
Lucas was Maisie’s father.
We had conceived her two years after our wedding.
There had never been another man.
But Warren’s accusation was too specific to ignore.
Hannah looked shaken when we found her.
“What did he mean?”
She sat down slowly.
“When Maisie was born, Dad ordered a DNA test.”
“Why?”
“He wanted to know whether Lucas could claim any control over your shares through the child.”
“That makes no sense.”
“It made sense to him.”
Warren viewed every relationship through ownership.
The test showed Lucas was Maisie’s biological father.
But Hannah said there was another result.
“What result?”
“Dad tested you too.”
My stomach tightened.
The test concluded Warren was not my biological father.
I stared at Hannah.
“That is impossible.”
Elaine had never suggested otherwise.
Then I remembered Rachel’s words.
The company began changing after an investor entered our lives twenty-three years earlier.
His name was David Mercer.
Not related to Detective Mercer.
David had been my mother’s college boyfriend and later invested in the family business.
He died in a boating accident when I was two.
Hannah found letters between Elaine and David hidden inside the red desk.
One letter stated:
Rebecca deserves the truth when she is old enough.
Warren discovered the letters and destroyed most of them.
He kept the DNA result because he planned to use it if I ever challenged him.
His cruelty suddenly had another shape.
I was not simply the daughter who questioned him.
I was proof of Elaine’s betrayal.
That did not explain everything.
It did explain why he always treated Tyler as his true heir and me as an intruder.
Lucas took my hand.
“This changes nothing about Maisie.”
“I know.”
“It changes nothing about us.”
“I know.”
But it changed the history I thought I understood.
State investigators reviewed David Mercer’s death.
The boat had exploded on the lake.
The case was ruled a fuel accident.
Warren had repaired the boat the day before.
A retired mechanic still had the work order.
Warren insisted on replacing the fuel line himself after the mechanic finished.
Detectives exhumed David’s old case files.
Photographs showed the fuel line had been deliberately cut.
Warren had likely killed my biological father too.
The prosecution reopened the investigation.
At Warren’s sentencing, the judge allowed the new evidence to be mentioned, though no separate murder charge had yet been filed.
Warren received four consecutive life sentences without parole.
He showed no remorse.
When asked if he wished to speak, he looked at me.
“Everything you have came from my name.”
I stood only after the judge permitted it.
“No. Everything I survived came from your choices.”
He was taken away.
A month later, DNA confirmed David Mercer was my biological father.
His estate had been transferred to distant relatives after his death.
But one small property remained unclaimed.
A cabin on the opposite side of the Colorado lake.
Inside, we found letters addressed to me.
David had written them before I was born.
In the final letter, he promised he would one day teach me to sail.
Maisie touched the paper.
“Can we learn?”
I looked at Lucas.
He smiled.
May you like
“Yes,” I said. “We can learn.”
👉 Rebecca had finally uncovered the father Warren erased, but healing required deciding what to do with the family business built on decades of stolen lives.
