Chapter 2 - Blood and Blackmail
Daniel Mercer hadn’t changed.
He had the same calculating eyes, the same predatory arrogance that had made my skin crawl five years ago when my parents announced across a candlelit dinner that our two families would be “uniting their interests.”
Back then, Daniel had been the golden boy of Cedar Ridge—the mayor’s only son, an heir to commercial real estate, a man who believed the world existed solely to cater to his appetites. When I had refused his ring, he had cornered me in the hallway outside my childhood bedroom, gripped my throat just hard enough to leave bruises beneath my collar, and whispered that if I ever left, he would make sure my family lost every square foot of land they owned.
I had run because I was terrified.
I had enlisted because I wanted a weapon, a uniform, and five hundred miles of federal law between me and Daniel Mercer.
Now, I was looking at that same man standing behind my twenty-year-old sister, holding her shoulder in the exact same possessive grip.
“Let go of her, Daniel,” I said. My voice was low, flat, and steady. The kind of voice Miller used right before someone got dropped for fifty push-ups.
Daniel chuckled, letting his hand slide up to Hannah’s neck, his thumb resting against her jawline. “Is that an order, Sergeant? You think because you put on some digital camouflage and earned a couple of ribbons, you run this town? This is my fiancée, Rebecca. Your replacement. Turns out the Cole family had a spare daughter when the first one broke her contract.”
Hannah flinched, a single tear cutting through her heavy makeup.
“Get your hand off her,” Miller warned, taking two aggressive strides toward the porch. “Right now, boy, before I remove it for you.”
“Careful, soldier,” Daniel sneered, looking toward the end of Maple Street where a silver town car with municipal plates had just pulled up behind the television van. “My father is the mayor. That badge on Officer Carter’s chest belongs to the city. Those federal agents are operating on local soil without a municipal liaison. You’re trespassing on private residential property.”
“Daniel Mercer,” Colonel Whitmore interrupted, stepping past my father without a glance. “You might want to check your phone. Your father isn’t coming to save you. He’s currently sitting in his office at City Hall with three agents from the Internal Revenue Service and the United States Postal Inspection Service.”
Daniel’s smile twitched at the edges. “What are you talking about?”
“We didn’t just pull the defense contracts, Mr. Mercer,” Whitmore said, opening a second tab in the folder. “We pulled the bank accounts. Specifically, the escrow account at First Commonwealth Bank under the name *Mercer Holdings LLC*. Over four point two million dollars in Department of Defense subcontracting funds were disbursed to Cole Valley Logistics between January of last year and last Friday. Within forty-eight hours of each federal wire transfer, seventy percent of those funds were re-routed into your personal shell corporation.”
The street fell dead silent.
Even the news crew seemed to stop breathing. Sarah Jenkins held her microphone out like a weapon, the camera operator focusing squarely on Daniel’s widening eyes.
“Robert signed those transfers,” Daniel said quickly, pointing down at my father. “Robert Cole is the CEO! He made those investments!”
“You son of a bitch,” my father whispered.
Everyone looked at Robert.
He was shaking now, not from fear, but from the sudden, grotesque realization of a man who realized he had been fed to the wolves.
“Robert, be quiet!” my mother screamed from the police car, banging her forehead against the glass. “Robert, don’t!”
“No, Elaine!” my father bellowed, turning toward the driveway with tears streaming down his ruddy cheeks. “He’s dumping us! The moment the feds show up, he throws me under the bus just like he threw Rebecca!”
Robert turned toward Colonel Whitmore, his voice ragged. “I didn’t want to sign them! Daniel came to me two years ago! He said Cole Valley Freight was six weeks from bankruptcy! He said his father had secured the Fort Campbell subcontracts through the state procurement board, but we couldn’t qualify unless we had a female veteran on the executive board! I told him Rebecca was gone! I told him she was in the Army!”
Robert pointed a trembling finger straight at Daniel’s chest.
“He told me to forge her power of attorney! He said Rebecca would never find out because she was stationed overseas! And when people in town started asking why Rebecca wasn’t at the city council dinners, Daniel said we had to bury her! He said if the town thought she was a criminal who stole from us, no one would believe her if she ever came back!”
“Robert, shut your mouth!” Daniel lunged forward, his face turning an ugly shade of crimson.
He never reached him.
The moment Daniel took a step away from Hannah, I moved.
Four years of hand-to-hand combat training, four years of muscle memory, four years of carrying eighty pounds of gear through mud and sand erased the space between us in two seconds. I didn't reach for a weapon. I reached for my sister.
I grabbed Hannah’s wrist, yanked her behind me, and planted myself on the porch between her and Daniel Mercer.
Daniel caught his balance, snarling, and raised his hand just like my mother had five minutes earlier. “You miserable bitch—”
He didn’t finish the sentence.
Sergeant Miller’s hand closed around Daniel’s wrist like an iron clamp, twisting his arm behind his back with a sharp, sickening pop that sent Daniel screaming to his knees on the concrete.
“Assaulting a federal officer, resisting, and attempted battery,” Miller said calmly into Daniel’s ear as Special Agent Vance stepped up with a pair of steel cuffs. “You really are a piece of work, aren’t you, son?”
“Hannah!” Daniel groaned, his face pressed against the dusty boards of the porch. “Hannah, tell them! Tell them you love me! Tell them she’s lying!”
Hannah stood behind me, her hands gripping the back of my Army combat uniform jacket so tightly that the fabric strained. She buried her face in the center of my shoulder blades, her whole body shaking with violent, racking sobs.
“Hannah?” I turned my head slightly, keeping one eye on Daniel. “Did you agree to marry him?”
She shook her head against my spine.
“He said…” Hannah gasped, her voice muffled by tears. “He said if I didn't marry him by next month, his father would foreclose on the house and send Dad to prison for tax fraud. He said… he said you were dead, Becca. He showed me a fake casualty notification letter last Christmas. He told me you died in Syria, and nobody cared enough to send your body home.”
The world turned red.
A cold, terrifying silence descended upon my mind.
I looked down at Daniel Mercer, who was now being dragged up by Agent Vance, his designer jacket torn, his hair ruined, his face streaked with dirt and sweat.
He had faked my prison record to the town.
He had stolen my name to take millions from the government.
And then he had told my little sister that I was dead, just to force her into the very bed I had escaped from.
“Colonel Whitmore,” I said, my voice eerily calm.
“Sergeant Cole?”
“Is Mayor Mercer still at City Hall?”
Whitmore checked his tactical wristwatch. “He was refusing to cooperate with our agents without a local warrant. He’s currently holding an emergency press conference in the council chambers to claim this is federal overreach.”
I straightened my patrol cap, adjusted the lapels of my uniform, and reached down to take Hannah’s hand in mine.
“Brooke,” I called out.
Brooke Hayes ran up the walkway, her phone still live, her eyes blazing with righteous fury. “I’m here, Becca. I’m right here.”
“Take my car with Sergeant Miller,” I said. “Sarah Jenkins, you’ve got a satellite truck, right?”
The Channel 4 reporter smiled, a sharp, hungry smile that every journalist gets when they smell blood in the water. “Broadcasting live to the entire tri-county area, Sergeant.”
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“Good,” I said, pulling Hannah down the porch steps with me. “Let’s go pay the mayor a visit.”
***