Chapter 10 - THE TRUTH ABOUT EMILY
My father was arrested.
The Mercer family collapsed.
Judge Kane was taken into federal custody.
The recordings became evidence in the largest corruption investigation the city had ever seen.
But the war wasn't over.
Clara was still recovering.
One afternoon, she asked me to sit beside her.
“I need to tell you something.”
“What?”
She took my hand.
“Our baby was a girl.”
I looked at her.
“I know.”
She cried.
“No.”
Her voice shook.
“The doctors were wrong.”
I didn't understand.
“They didn't know for certain.”
Clara had discovered the truth from an ultrasound taken two days before the attack.
A girl.
Emily.
The name I had secretly chosen.
I started crying.
“I never told you that name.”
She smiled through tears.
“I knew.”
“How?”
“You said it in your sleep.”
I laughed despite myself.
Then she placed a small photograph in my hand.
An ultrasound.
Our daughter's tiny profile.
I stared at it.
For a few minutes, I let myself grieve.
Not as a powerful man.
Not as a CEO.
Just as a father who would never hold his child.
Clara touched my face.
“She was loved.”
“I know.”
That night, I made a decision.
The Mercer family had destroyed our lives.
My father had destroyed thousands more.
I could answer violence with violence.
But that was exactly what my father wanted.
Instead, I would make sure their empire never returned.
Every asset was seized.
Every hidden account was exposed.
Every corrupt official named in the recordings was investigated.
I personally funded a foundation in Emily's name.
It would help women escaping abusive families.
Clara chose the name.
The Emily Carter Foundation.
It became the beginning of something neither of us expected.
But one final threat remained.
My father's attorney delivered a letter.
The last sentence read:
May you like
You still don't know what your father did to Clara before the attack.
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