Blood and Revelations
I was already moving before my mother hit the ground.
Callum's hand on my arm—tight enough to bruise—was the only thing that kept me from running straight into Victoria's line of fire. The second shot went wide, shattering what was left of the warehouse windows, and then the FBI agents were returning fire and Callum was dragging me behind a concrete pillar that smelled like rust and old motor oil.
"Let me go—" My voice didn't sound like mine. Too high. Too thin.
"She's down. The agents have her." His fingers dug into my bicep. "You can't help her if you're dead."
I twisted free anyway, dropped to my knees beside my mother. Blood pooled beneath her shoulder, spreading across the concrete in a pattern that looked almost deliberate, like spilled wine at a dinner party gone wrong. Her eyes were open. Still open. That had to mean something.
"Mom—" I pressed my hands against the wound, felt hot blood pulse between my fingers. "Stay with me. You have to stay with me."
She tried to speak. Her lips moved, forming words I couldn't hear over the ringing in my ears, the shouts of the FBI agents, the sound of my own breathing—too fast, too shallow, like I'd forgotten how lungs were supposed to work.
"Don't talk. Save your strength." I looked up at Callum, who'd crouched beside me. "Call an ambulance. Now."
"Already done." He shrugged off his jacket, pressed it against my mother's shoulder. His hands covered mine, steadying them. "Keep pressure here. Don't let up."
More agents swarmed past us, weapons drawn. Through the broken windows I could see Victoria on the ground, three agents pinning her down while a fourth kicked her gun away. She was laughing. Even from here I could hear it—high and bright and completely unhinged.
"Sloane." My mother's hand found mine, slick with blood. "Listen—"
"No. You're going to be fine. You're going to tell me everything later, when you're—"
"Your father." She coughed, and blood flecked her lips. "He's not—he's not who you think."
The words made no sense. Nothing made sense. My father was dead. Had been dead for fifteen years. Except apparently he wasn't, and my mother had known, and now she was bleeding out on a warehouse floor because Victoria Hargrave had decided tonight was a good night for murder.
"Mrs. Mercer, we need you to stay quiet." One of the paramedics—when had they arrived?—was suddenly there, easing me aside with practiced efficiency. "Ma'am, can you tell me your name?"
"Eleanor." My mother's eyes stayed locked on mine. "Eleanor Mercer. My daughter—you have to protect my daughter."
"We've got her." The paramedic's partner was already setting up an IV line. "Sir, I need you to step back."
Callum pulled me to my feet. I watched them work, watched them cut away my mother's blouse—silk, I noticed stupidly, the expensive kind she only wore for important meetings—and attach monitors that beeped in rhythms I didn't understand.
"She knew." The words came out flat. Dead. "She knew he was alive and she never told me."
"Sloane—"
"Don't." I yanked my arm free, left a smear of blood on his shirt. "Just—don't."
An FBI agent approached, the same one who'd been questioning my mother earlier. Up close she looked younger than I'd thought, maybe thirty, with the kind of severe ponytail that suggested she'd given up on softness a long time ago.
"Miss Mercer. I'm Special Agent Chen. I need to ask you some questions."
"My mother needs a hospital."
"The paramedics are handling that. Right now I need to know what Victoria Hargrave said to you before the shooting."
I tried to remember. The moments before the gunshot felt distant, like something that had happened to someone else. "She said—she said my father was alive. That he'd been alive this whole time."
Agent Chen's expression didn't change. "Did she say where he is?"
"No. She didn't get the chance because she was too busy trying to kill my mother."
"Miss Mercer—"
"Is it true?" I stepped closer, close enough to see the tiny scar above her left eyebrow. "Is my father alive?"
The pause before she answered told me everything.
"We believe so, yes."
The warehouse tilted. Or maybe I did. Callum's hand was on my elbow again, steadying me, and I wanted to shake him off but my legs had apparently forgotten how to support my weight.
"Where is he?"
"That's classified information."
"Classified—" I laughed, heard how it sounded—sharp and wrong and nothing like humor. "My mother just got shot. Victoria Hargrave just escaped FBI custody and tried to kill us. I think we're past classified."
"Miss Mercer, I understand you're upset—"
"Upset. Right. That's the word for finding out your dead father has been alive for fifteen years and your mother lied about it." I turned to Callum. "Did you know?"
His silence was answer enough.
"Of course you did." I backed away from both of them, from the blood on the concrete, from the paramedics loading my mother onto a stretcher. "Everyone knew except me."
"Sloane, it's not—"
"Not what? Not that simple? Not what it looks like?" I was moving toward the exit now, toward the shattered windows and the cold air beyond. "You know what needs a rewrite? This entire goddamn night."
"Where are you going?"
"Away from you."
I made it three steps before Agent Chen blocked my path. "I can't let you leave. You're a material witness."
"To what? My mother getting shot? Pretty sure you have plenty of other witnesses for that."
"To Victoria Hargrave's escape. To whatever she told you about your father." Agent Chen's voice stayed level, professional, the kind of calm that made me want to scream. "And until we have her back in custody, you're in danger."
"I'm always in danger. That's what happens when you're related to people who fake their own deaths."
"Miss Mercer—"
"Let her go." Callum's voice cut through the warehouse, sharp enough that even Agent Chen paused. "She's not going anywhere without protection. I'll make sure of it."
"Mr. Hargrave, with all due respect, your family connection to the suspect makes you—"
"Makes me what? Complicit?" He moved past me, positioned himself between Agent Chen and the exit. "Victoria is my stepmother. Was my stepmother. Whatever relationship we had ended the moment she pulled that trigger."
Agent Chen studied him for a long moment. "Fine. But if anything happens to Miss Mercer—"
"It won't."
The car Callum led me to was black, expensive, the kind with windows tinted dark enough to hide bodies. I got in anyway because the alternative was staying in that warehouse with my mother's blood still wet on my hands and Agent Chen's questions circling like vultures.
Callum slid into the driver's seat, started the engine. Didn't ask where I wanted to go.
"My apartment," I said.
"Not safe."
"I don't care."
"Sloane—"
"Take me home or let me out. Those are your options."
He pulled out of the parking lot, headed north. Away from my apartment. Away from anything familiar.
"Where are we going?"
"Somewhere Victoria doesn't know about." He took a left turn too fast, and I grabbed the door handle. "Somewhere we can talk."
"I don't want to talk to you."
"I know."
We drove in silence through streets that got progressively emptier, progressively darker. The city gave way to suburbs, then to something that wasn't quite country but wasn't quite anything else either. Trees pressed close to the road, their branches forming a canopy that blocked out the stars.
"How long have you known?" I asked finally. "About my father."
"Three weeks."
Three weeks. We'd been sleeping together for two months. He'd had plenty of time to tell me.
"And you didn't think that was information I might want?"
"It wasn't my secret to tell."
"Bullshit." I turned to face him, watched his profile in the dashboard light. "You've been using me since the beginning. Revenge against Victoria, you said. But it was more than that, wasn't it?"
His face hardened. "Yes."
"What else?"
"Your father—" He paused, seemed to be choosing his words carefully. "Your father worked for my family. Before he disappeared."
The words took a moment to land. When they did, they hit like a second gunshot.
"Worked for you how?"
"Financial consulting. He helped my father structure some overseas investments." Callum's hands tightened on the steering wheel. "Investments that turned out to be less than legal."
"You're saying my father was a criminal."
"I'm saying he got caught up in something bigger than he understood. And when the FBI started investigating, he ran."
"Leaving my mother and me behind."
"Leaving you safe. If he'd stayed, you would have been targets too."
I laughed again, that same wrong sound. "So he faked his death to protect us. How noble."
"Sloane—"
"And my mother knew. She knew he was alive and she let me grieve him. Let me spend fifteen years thinking he was dead." My nails dug into my palms, left those familiar crescents. "Why would she do that?"
"Because she loved you." Callum took another turn, onto a gravel road that led deeper into the trees. "Because keeping you in the dark kept you safe."
"I'm so tired of people deciding what's safe for me."
The car stopped in front of a cabin—small, isolated, the kind of place people went to disappear. Callum killed the engine but didn't move to get out.
"I should have told you," he said. "About your father. About Victoria. About all of it."
"Yes. You should have."
"I was trying to protect you."
"By lying to me?"
"By keeping you out of it until I could handle Victoria myself." He turned to face me, and in the dim light his eyes looked almost black. "I didn't expect to—I didn't plan on caring about you."
"Is that supposed to make me feel better?"
"It's supposed to be the truth."
I reached for the door handle. "I need air."
Outside, the night was cold enough to hurt. I walked away from the cabin, from the car, from Callum, until the trees swallowed me and the only sound was my own breathing and the distant call of something that might have been an owl.
My phone buzzed. A text from an unknown number: Your mother is in surgery. Stable for now. —Agent Chen
Stable. The word felt meaningless. My mother had been shot. My father was alive. Victoria was still out there somewhere, probably planning her next move. And I was standing in the middle of nowhere with a man who'd been lying to me since the day we met.
Footsteps crunched on gravel behind me. Callum, keeping his distance.
"There's more," he said.
"Of course there is."
"Your father—he's been in contact with Victoria. Recently."
I turned. "What?"
"That's why she came after your mother. She wanted leverage." He moved closer, stopped just outside arm's reach. "Your father has something Victoria wants. Information about my family's business dealings. And she thinks your mother knows where he is."
"Does she?"
"I don't know."
"But you have theories."
"Always." He smiled, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Your mother's publishing house—it's been losing money for years. But she keeps it running. Keeps paying the bills."
"So?"
"So where's the money coming from?"
The implication settled over me like ice water. "You think my father's been sending her money. All this time."
"I think it's possible."
"Which means she's been in contact with him. Which means she knows where he is." I pressed my palms against my eyes, felt the smudged eyeliner smear further. "Which means she's been lying to me for fifteen years."
"Sloane—"
"Don't." I dropped my hands. "Just—tell me the rest. Whatever else you're hiding."
He hesitated, and that hesitation told me everything I needed to know about how bad it was going to be.
"Victoria isn't working alone," he said finally. "She has partners. People who want your father found as badly as she does."
"Who?"
"I don't know all of them. But one of them—" He paused again. "One of them is FBI."
The words didn't make sense. Couldn't make sense.
"You're saying there's a corrupt agent."
"I'm saying Agent Chen's investigation into Victoria has been going on for three years and somehow Victoria always stays one step ahead." Callum moved closer, close enough that I could see the blood—my mother's blood—still staining his shirt cuffs. "I'm saying we can't trust anyone."
"Including you?"
"Especially me."
My phone buzzed again. Another text, different number: I have what you're looking for. Meet me at the address below. Come alone. —Dad
I stared at the screen, at the word that shouldn't exist, at the address that meant nothing to me. Callum was reading over my shoulder before I could stop him.
"It's a trap," he said.
"Probably."
"You're not going."
"Watch me."
I was already walking back to the car when I heard it—the snap of a branch, too loud to be an animal. Callum heard it too. His hand went to his waistband, came back with a gun I hadn't known he was carrying.
"Get in the car," he said quietly.
"Callum—"
"Now."
I ran. Made it three steps before the cabin exploded, a ball of fire that turned night into day and threw me forward onto the gravel. My ears rang. My hands stung where I'd caught myself. And when I looked up, Callum was on the ground beside me, blood streaming from a cut above his eye.
"Are you—" I reached for him, but he was already moving, pulling me behind the car as gunfire erupted from the trees.
"Stay down," he said, and then he was returning fire, three shots that lit up the darkness and made my ears ring harder.
A voice called out from the trees, British accent sharp even at a distance: "Darling, you can't hide from me forever."
Victoria.
Callum fired twice more, then grabbed my hand. "Run."
We ran, crashing through underbrush that tore at my clothes and skin, branches whipping past my face. Behind us, Victoria's laughter followed, high and bright and getting closer.
"This way—" Callum pulled me left, toward what looked like a hiking trail. "There's a road half a mile—"
The shot caught him in the shoulder, spun him around. He went down hard, and I was screaming his name before I could stop myself.
"Callum—"
"Go." He pushed me away with his good arm. "Run."
"I'm not leaving you—"
"Sloane." He grabbed my wrist, pulled me close enough that I could see the pain in his eyes, the blood soaking through his shirt. "Your father. The address. You need to—"
Another shot, closer this time. I looked up and saw her, Victoria, stepping out of the trees with her gun raised and that same terrible smile.
"There you are, sweetheart," she said. "We have so much to discuss."
I stood, put myself between her and Callum. "Stay back."
"Or what? You'll bore me to death with publishing jargon?" She moved closer, gun steady. "Your mother made the same mistake. Thinking she could protect you. Thinking love was stronger than survival."
"My mother's alive."
"For now." Victoria's smile widened. "But your father—he won't be. Not once I find him. Not once I get what he stole from me."
"What did he steal?"
"Everything." The gun didn't waver. "My money. My reputation. My life." She took another step. "And now I'm going to take his. Starting with you."
Behind me, Callum was trying to stand, failing. Blood pooled beneath him, black in the moonlight.
"Victoria." His voice was weak but steady. "This is between us. Let her go."
"Oh, darling. It stopped being between us the moment you chose her over me." Victoria's finger tightened on the trigger. "Say goodbye, Sloane."
I closed my eyes, waited for the shot.
It didn't come.
Instead, a voice—male, unfamiliar—said: "Put the gun down, Victoria."
I opened my eyes. A man stood behind Victoria, his own weapon pressed against the back of her head. He was older, maybe fifty, with gray hair and eyes that looked like mine.
"Hello, Sloane," my father said. "I think it's time we