Chapter 2 - THE PLAN BEFORE THE BRICK
The emergency room confirmed Elena had a fractured cheekbone and a deep cut requiring stitches.
No brain bleed.
No damage to the eye.
Daniel sat beside her for six hours.
He did not ask why her father wanted him to choose Vanessa until the doctor left.
Then he said:
“What did he mean?”
Elena stared at the hospital blanket.
“I don’t know.”
That was true.
Mostly.
There had always been something strange about Daniel’s arrival in the Mercer family.
He met Elena at a charity redevelopment hearing two years earlier.
He was a thirty-two-year-old architect working on historic-property preservation.
Elena represented the Mercer family foundation.
Vanessa attended the same event.
Afterward, their mother became oddly interested in Daniel.
Not in Elena dating him.
In Daniel himself.
Who was his father?
What firm did he work for?
Did his family still control the Hale Development voting trust?
Elena assumed Vivian was being nosy.
Then Daniel proposed.
Robert did not congratulate them.
He left the room.
Vivian cried.
Not happy tears.
Vanessa stopped speaking to Elena for six weeks.
At the time, Elena thought jealousy explained it.
Now Daniel said:
“My family trust?”
Elena looked at him.
“What?”
He frowned.
“My father’s company. Hale Urban Holdings. Your mother asked about it the first night I met them.”
Elena remembered.
Yes.
Too many questions.
Too much interest.
Daniel leaned back.
“My grandfather and your grandfather did business together.”
Elena turned.
“What kind?”
“Land.”
That was the first crack.
Mercer Properties owned nearly sixty acres along the Chicago River industrial corridor.
Hale Urban Holdings had spent years trying to assemble adjacent parcels for a massive redevelopment project.
Elena’s grandfather refused to sell.
Then he died.
The land passed into a trust.
Who controlled the deciding vote?
Elena.
Not Robert.
Not Vivian.
Not Vanessa.
Elena.
Daniel looked at her.
“Your father didn’t want me to choose Vanessa because he cared who I married.”
Elena’s stomach tightened.
“He wanted our families tied together.”
May you like
Daniel nodded slowly.
“And he thought Vanessa would cooperate.”
