Chapter 4 - An Unholy Alliance
Harper slowly unlocked the door, keeping the security chain slid into place. "What do you want? I left. I took the money. I haven't talked to anyone."
Callum looked down at her through the crack in the door. The fierce, terrifying mafia boss from the night before looked strangely human in the dim light of her apartment building, though no less dangerous.
"Open the door, Harper," he said, his voice a low command. "If I wanted you dead, you wouldn't have made it to the bus stop last night. We need to talk."
Harper hesitated, then unlatched the chain and stepped back. Callum entered, his presence instantly shrinking the small apartment. He looked around, his eyes lingering on the old shoebox and the diary open on the table.
"My mother hasn't spoken a coherent sentence in three years," Callum said, turning to face her. "She doesn't remember what she ate for breakfast. She doesn't recognize my fiancée half the time. But last night, she knew your mother's name. And she knew my father's name."
"She isn't confused, Mr. Mercer," Harper said, crossing her arms defensively. "She's terrified. She's been playing dumb for twenty years because she knows who killed your father."
Callum’s jaw tightened, a vein pulsing at his temple. "My father died in a warehouse fire twenty years ago. It was an accident caused by a faulty electrical line, right after he was accused of skimming millions from our shipping contracts."
"It wasn't an accident," Harper said, picking up her mother's diary and holding it out to him. "Read it. My mother hid the real ledger. The proof that your uncle Graham framed your father and took over the family operations."
Callum snatched the diary, his eyes flying over the faded ink. As he read, the color drained from his face. The brutal reality of his entire life—the loyalty he had given to his uncle, the guilt he had carried for his father's alleged betrayal—began to crumble.
"The Blue Room," Callum whispered, looking up. "It’s been locked since my father died. Graham insisted on keeping it sealed out of 'respect' for his memory. I never questioned it."
"The stair runner last night wasn't an accident either," Harper pointed out. "Your mother was trying to get to the Blue Room, or Graham realized she was starting to remember. He tried to have her killed, Mr. Mercer. He tried to make her fall down those stairs so she would never talk."
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Callum’s eyes turned pitch black, a terrifying, predatory stillness settling over him. "If Graham touched my mother... if he killed my father..." He stopped, looking at Harper. "I need that ledger. But Graham has eyes everywhere in that house. If I start tearing down the walls of the Blue Room, he’ll know I’m onto him and destroy the evidence before I can find it."
"He doesn't know me," Harper said, a sudden spark of bravery igniting in her chest. "He thinks I'm just a thief who got fired. Let me back in. I know exactly where she hid it."
