Chương 4
His father would have hated the wasted effort.
Richard Mercer believed everything should have a purpose.
Maybe that was why Daniel had spent years feeling like he was failing at being a person.
“You’re doing that thing again,” Emily said.
Daniel looked over.
“What thing?”
“The thing where you disappear into your own head and decide what everyone else is thinking.”
He looked back at the road.
“You mean like assuming you know why Dad did everything?”
Emily tightened her lips.
“That’s fair.”
The answer surprised him.
He expected a defense.
Instead, she looked tired.
That was new.
For most of their lives, Emily had been the translator between Daniel and their father.
She softened Richard’s words.
She explained his moods.
She found excuses when he was harsh.
Daniel had always believed she was choosing him over Daniel.
Now he wondered if she had simply been trying to survive him too.
“You should have told me about Claire,” he said.
“I know.”
“That’s it?”
“What do you want me to say?”
“I don’t know.”
The honesty bothered him because it left him with nothing to attack.
Emily looked out the window.
“I thought I was protecting you.”
“From what?”
She paused.
“From finding out that maybe Dad wasn’t the person you decided he was.”
Daniel laughed quietly.
“That’s supposed to make me feel better?”
“No.”
Her voice was low.
“It’s supposed to be the truth.”
They parked near the storage office, where a teenage employee was eating chips behind the counter while scrolling through his phone.
The teenager glanced up, checked their paperwork, and pointed toward the back rows without much interest.
The world did not stop because Daniel Mercer’s family had secrets.
That bothered him.
Some part of him had expected the universe to acknowledge that something important was happening.
Instead, a forklift beeped somewhere behind the buildings.
A delivery truck reversed into a loading area.
Someone nearby argued about a missing package.
Life continued with embarrassing confidence.
Unit 214 was near the end of the second hallway.
The lock looked ordinary.
That was the first thing Daniel noticed.
After everything, after the letter and the strange warning and the hidden meeting, he expected something different.
Something that matched the importance he had assigned to it.
Instead, it was just a metal door with scratches near the handle.
Emily stood beside him.
“You ready?”
“No.”
She nodded.
“Me neither.”
The lock opened easily.
Inside were six cardboard boxes, two plastic containers, and an old wooden chair.
Daniel stared.
“That’s it?”
Emily stepped closer.
“I guess.”
The disappointment arrived before the fear.
He hated that.
He had prepared himself for a disaster.
A normal room felt almost insulting.
Then he noticed the chair.
His father’s chair.
Not the one from their house.
A smaller one with worn arms and a crack along the back.
Daniel remembered it from when he was a child.
It had been in the garage of their first home.
Richard used to sit there while repairing tools.
Daniel had spent hours watching him work, waiting for the moment his father would finally say he was proud.
That moment never came.
“You remember that chair?” Emily asked.
Daniel did not answer immediately.
“Yes.”
Emily touched the edge of one box but did not open it.
“Dad kept it after we moved.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know.”
Daniel looked around.
For the first time since entering the unit, the room felt less like a storage space and more like a place someone had been avoiding.
He opened the nearest box.
Inside were old business records.
Invoices.
Contracts.
Receipts.
Nothing dramatic.
Nothing that explained why his father had hidden them.
Then he found a folder with his name on it.
He froze.
Emily noticed.
“Daniel.”
“I see it.”
The folder was thin.
Too thin.
That made him more nervous.
Important things were usually buried under paperwork.
They were not usually waiting on top.
He opened it carefully.
Inside were copies of documents from fifteen years earlier.
Construction permits.
Company financial statements.
A letter from a bank.
And a page with Daniel’s signature.
He looked at it for several seconds before understanding what he was seeing.
“No.”
Emily moved closer.
“What?”
He handed her the paper.
Her expression changed.
Daniel recognized that expression.
It was the same one she had when their mother died.
The expression of someone discovering a memory they had trusted was incomplete.
“This is your signature,” Emily said.
“I was twenty-two.”
“That doesn’t answer the question.”
“I know.”
He looked at the document again.
The signature was his.
The handwriting was younger.
Less confident.
But it was his.
“What did I sign?”
Emily read silently.
Then she looked up.
“Daniel.”
“Just tell me.”
She swallowed.
“It’s a transfer agreement.”
“For what?”
“The company.”
The room became quiet.
Not empty quiet.
Heavy quiet.
Daniel took the paper back.
He read the first page.
Then the second.
The words moved slower each time.
According to the documents, Richard Mercer had transferred partial ownership of Mercer Construction to Daniel after Daniel finished college.
Daniel remembered the day differently.
He remembered his father asking him to sign papers because he was restructuring the business.
He remembered not reading everything.
He remembered trusting him.
That memory hurt worse than the document.
Because it meant Richard had not tricked a stranger.
He had used his son’s trust.
“I never owned part of the company,” Daniel said.
Emily looked uncomfortable.
“Apparently you did.”
“No.”
He shook his head.
“That’s impossible.”
“Why?”
“Because Dad fired me.”
The sentence came out faster than he expected.
Emily looked at him.
Daniel stared at the page.
“He told me I was useless.”
His voice became quieter.
“He said I had no idea how business worked.”
Emily sat down on the wooden chair.
“Daniel.”
“He told me I was lucky he let me work there.”
“I know.”
He looked up.
“You knew that too?”
Emily looked away.
“I knew he said things like that.”
May you like
The anger returned.
“Everyone knew.”
