Chapter 10 - Michael’s Price
Emily saw Michael face-to-face for the first time in six days in the hallway outside Family Court.
He looked thinner.
Still polished.
Still controlled.
His attorney stood ten feet away.
Nora warned Emily not to engage.
Michael ignored that.
“Emily.”
She kept walking.
“I need two minutes.”
“No.”
“It’s about Sophie.”
She stopped.
He knew exactly which word would work.
Nora touched her elbow.
“Public corridor. Two minutes.”
Michael looked at Nora.
“Alone.”
“No,” Emily said.
He smiled faintly.
“You always did need witnesses when you were angry.”
Emily almost reacted.
Almost.
Then she saw it for what it was.
A hook.
She smiled back.
“You’ll have plenty of witnesses soon.”
His expression hardened.
“I didn’t tell Vanessa to hit Sophie.”
“You told her to scare her.”
“She panicked.”
“You said, ‘Not the face.’”
“That isn’t proven.”
“It will be.”
Michael stepped closer.
“I made mistakes.”
“You built a criminal enterprise.”
“Don’t be theatrical.”
“You stole millions.”
“We moved capital.”
“Into your investment account.”
His jaw tightened.
“You have no idea how your father ran that company.”
Emily stared at him.
“Don’t say his name.”
“He treated me like hired help for twelve years.”
“You were hired help.”
Michael’s face changed.
There it was.
The wound beneath everything.
He had married Emily when he was a rising finance executive.
Her father, Jonathan Mercer, had respected his intelligence but never trusted his ambition.
Michael had joined the family company.
Every newspaper profile called him “the CEO’s husband.”
Every conference introduced Emily first.
Every major decision required her signature.
Michael had spent years smiling through it.
“You think this is about Vanessa?” he said.
“No.”
“Good.”
“It’s about you being unable to survive in a room where you weren’t the most powerful person.”
He leaned toward her.
“I built half the financial systems that made your expansion possible.”
“And you were paid millions.”
“I made your inheritance valuable.”
“My father built it.”
“Your father handed you a throne.”
Emily stepped closer.
“And you decided the throne was yours because you sat beside it.”
Michael’s eyes flickered.
Nora quietly said, “Emily.”
Time.
Emily turned away.
Michael spoke again.
“You still don’t know why Vanessa was in Sophie’s room.”
Emily stopped.
He saw that he had her.
“What was she looking for?”
Michael smiled.
“You think it was the box?”
Emily said nothing.
“Ask yourself why she took a black box full of evidence into your daughter’s bedroom.”
Nora looked at him sharply.
Michael continued.
“She was looking for something.”
“What?”
“Something your father left.”
Emily felt a chill.
“My father never kept documents in Sophie’s room.”
“It wasn’t Sophie’s room when he bought the house.”
Emily knew that.
Before Sophie was born, the bedroom had been Emily’s private sitting room.
Before that, her mother’s dressing room.
Michael walked away.
Nora caught Emily’s arm.
“Do not chase him.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“You were.”
“I was considering it.”
“That is chasing with vocabulary.”
Despite everything, Emily almost laughed.
Back at the mansion under sheriff supervision, Emily examined the glass wardrobe.
It had belonged to her mother, Catherine.
French walnut.
Hand-cut glass.
It had moved through three Mercer homes.
Sophie loved it because Emily once told her princess dresses belonged inside.
Emily removed the drawers.
Nothing.
She checked the shelves.
Nothing.
Then she remembered her father complaining years earlier that Catherine had hidden jewelry in “that ridiculous false bottom.”
Emily pulled out the lowest drawer.
Beneath it lay a thin wood panel.
She lifted it.
Empty.
Except for a rectangular dust mark.
Something had been there recently.
Sophie stood at the doorway with the caseworker.
“Mom?”
Emily looked up.
“Did Vanessa touch this drawer?”
Sophie nodded.
“She took something.”
“What?”
“I don’t know. An envelope.”
Emily’s heart quickened.
“What color?”
“Blue.”
“Did you see words?”
Sophie thought.
“One.”
“What word?”
May you like
Sophie looked at her.
“Michael.”
