Chapter 3 - The Ghost of Harbor Bridge
Nolan choked, his hands clawing at Gideon’s iron grip. “I didn't kill her! I swear to God, Gideon, I didn't want her dead!”
Gideon didn't loosen his grip. “But you knew.”
“I didn't know she was pregnant!” Nolan cried out, his face turning red. “I swear! I thought she died in the river! I didn't find out until months later that someone had pulled her out!”
Gideon’s heart stopped. Someone pulled her out. The reality of it slammed into him like a freight train. Lydia hadn't drowned. She had been alive. Somewhere out there, terrified and alone, she had carried his child.
Gideon threw Nolan away from him. Nolan collapsed onto the sofa, gasping for air, rubbing his neck.
“Explain,” Gideon commanded, pulling a silver-plated revolver from his desk drawer and laying it flat on the mahogany surface. “Every word. Or this room becomes your grave.”
Nolan looked at the gun, then up at his brother. The defiance was gone, replaced by the broken realization that he was caught. “Two years ago, Lydia found records of the human trafficking ring operating through Pier 14. She didn't know it was a Mercer operation. She thought it was the Valettis. She brought the files to me because she didn't want to worry you. She thought I could handle it legally through our front companies.”
Gideon’s fist clenched. Lydia had been trying to protect him. She knew how violent he could be, and she wanted to keep his hands clean.
“I panicked,” Nolan confessed, his voice shaking. “Our father set up that operation before he died. It was worth millions. If you found out, you would have killed the men involved and started a war that would have destroyed the Mercer name. I told our uncle, Silas.”
Silas Mercer. Gideon’s blood ran ice-cold. Silas was their father’s older brother, a reclusive, ruthless man who had supposedly retired to a sprawling estate in upstate New York years ago. He was a shadow figure, the old guard who believed the mafia should be built on blood and absolute secrecy.
“Silas said he would take care of it. He said he’d bribe her, buy her silence,” Nolan wept. “I didn't know he was going to cut her brake lines! When the car went over the bridge, I was horrified, Gideon. But Silas threatened me. He said if I spoke up, he’d tell you I was the one who gave her up. He knew you’d kill me.”
“And the baby?” Gideon demanded, his voice trembling with a mixture of rage and profound grief.
“Six months ago, Silas called me,” Nolan whispered. “He told me his men had tracked down a woman living under an assumed name in a cabin near the Canadian border. It was Lydia. She had survived the crash, but she was injured. She had been hiding, waiting to have the baby. Silas... Silas went to finish the job.”
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Gideon felt the room tilt. “Is she dead?”
“I don't know!” Nolan shouted. “Silas told me he took care of it. But last week, one of Silas’s personal enforcers went missing. A guy named Victor. Victor was always loyal to Lydia before the split. I think... I think Victor turned on Silas. I think he smuggled the baby out and brought her here.”
