Chapter 3 - The Brother
Ethan read Jacob’s letter beneath the chandelier.
My name was Jacob Reed because the Mercers refused to let me use theirs.
The room went silent.
Jacob’s mother, Maria Reed, had worked in the Mercer mansion twenty-nine years earlier.
Ethan’s father had promised to acknowledge their child.
Instead, the family paid Maria to leave Connecticut and raised Ethan as the only heir.
Jacob grew up in a working-class neighborhood outside Hartford.
He earned an electrical license.
He later returned to the Mercer estate under his mother’s surname, not for revenge, but because the mansion’s oldest employee files contained proof of his birth.
Ethan looked toward Victoria.
“How much did you know?”
“Only rumors.”
Leah shook her head.
“You knew enough to search my room.”
Victoria’s face hardened.
“You had family property.”
“No.”
Leah held up the comb.
“Jacob had the only thing his father ever gave him.”
The humiliation deepened.
Jacob had repaired the family’s hotels while executives called him “the electrician.”
He ate with maintenance staff.
Used basement elevators.
Entered through loading docks.
Meanwhile, his younger half-brother inherited the company built under their shared father’s name.
Ethan lowered the letter.
“Why didn’t Jacob tell me?”
Leah looked at him.
“He tried.”
“When?”
“Three weeks before the accident.”
Ethan froze.
A memory returned.
Jacob waiting outside the boardroom.
A sealed folder in his hand.
Ethan had refused to see him because Victoria said a contractor was creating drama during merger negotiations.
Leah watched recognition cross his face.
“You sent him away.”
Ethan closed his eyes.
“Yes.”
Victoria interrupted.
“That does not give her the right to disrupt tonight.”
Leah stared at the scissors.
May you like
“No.”
“What gave me that right was the document you tried to make me sign.”
