“You Don’t Fit My World Anymore” — He Divorced His Billionaire Wife on a $41 Cab Fare. She Owned…
Chapter 7
Evan Cole had once been Daniel’s closest friend.
They had joined Mercer Holdings together.
They had planned careers together.
They had even talked about starting their own firm.
Then Evan had vanished after an internal investigation.
Daniel had always believed Evan left because of fraud allegations.
Now he wasn’t so sure.
“Where is he?” Daniel asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Did you report the photograph?”
“To whom?”
Daniel paused.
Mia had a point.
If someone inside the company had been involved in Richard’s death, she couldn’t assume every investigator was clean.
“Why did you never tell me you were being watched?”
“Because I didn’t know who I could trust.”
Daniel looked at her.
“You could have trusted me.”
Mia’s eyes narrowed.
“Could I?”
He didn’t answer.
She continued.
“When you told me I didn’t fit your world, you gave someone exactly what they wanted.”
Daniel’s stomach dropped.
“What?”
“You walked away.”
“So?”
“Now I’m isolated.”
Daniel stared at her.
“That’s what they wanted?”
“Maybe.”
A phone rang.
Mia answered.
Her face changed.
“Where?”
She listened.
“Don’t touch anything.”
She hung up.
“What happened?”
“There was a break-in at the old company archives.”
Daniel stood.
“What was taken?”
“Nothing.”
“Then why break in?”
Mia looked at him.
“Someone left something.”
They drove to the archive building.
Police had already arrived.
A broken window.
Scattered files.
Nothing obvious missing.
Then Daniel noticed an envelope placed on a desk.
His name was written on it.
He looked at Mia.
She nodded.
Open it.
Inside was a single key.
And a handwritten message.
Forty-one dollars bought you freedom. Let’s see what your freedom costs her.
Daniel’s blood ran cold.
Mia took the note.
For the first time since Daniel had known her, she looked genuinely afraid.
“What does the key open?” he asked.
She stared at it.
“I don’t know.”
Daniel turned it over.
A number was engraved on the metal.
Mia’s face changed.
“What?”
“There used to be a private vault at the Mercer estate.”
“Number 117?”
She shook her head.
“No.”
She looked toward the door.
“Room 117.”
Daniel felt the hairs on his arms rise.
“What’s in room 117?”
Mia whispered,
“My father kept his most dangerous records there.”
They drove back to the estate.
Room 117 had been sealed for years.
The key turned.
The door opened.
Inside was a small room covered in dust.
No furniture.
No paintings.
Only a metal safe built into the wall.
Daniel entered first.
Mia followed.
The safe was already open.
Inside was an old recorder.
A folder.
And a photograph of Mia as a young girl.
Her father stood beside her.
On the back, someone had written:
She was never supposed to inherit alone.
Daniel looked at Mia.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
Mia didn’t answer.
She was staring at a second page.
A legal document.
Daniel read it over her shoulder.
The final beneficiary of Richard Mercer’s entire private fortune…
was not Mia.
It was Daniel.
