Chapter 5 - The Marriage They PlannedRachel obtained the document through formal legal channels before Lorraine’s side could make it disappear.
The draft agreement was astonishing.
It contemplated Daniel marrying Celeste Cross.
Neither Daniel nor Celeste had signed it.
Yet the financial structure was detailed down to individual properties.
“They planned my divorce before I even knew there was a plan,” Daniel said.
Rachel corrected him.
“They drafted documents. We still need evidence showing who authorized what.”
Celeste Cross provided that evidence herself.
She arrived at Rachel's office unexpectedly.
“I need to talk to Daniel.”
Celeste was forty-two, sophisticated and visibly furious.
“I never agreed to marry you.”
Daniel almost smiled.
“Good. Because I'm already married.”
“This isn't funny.”
She placed printed emails on the table.
Lorraine had been communicating with Celeste for eighteen months.
In those emails, Lorraine described Maya as “temporary” and claimed Daniel’s marriage was collapsing.
It wasn't.
Lorraine also claimed Daniel had privately expressed interest in Celeste.
He hadn't.
“She manipulated both of us,” Celeste said.
Daniel read another email.
Lorraine had promised Cross Meridian access to Mercer trust assets after Daniel’s remarriage.
Celeste shook her head.
“My mother never authorized this.”
“Why would Lorraine think she could?”
“Because someone inside Cross Meridian did.”
That person was Evelyn's chief financial officer, Peter Lang.
Samuel Price began tracing the missing trust money.
Within days, he discovered payments from Mercer-controlled entities into consulting companies associated with Lang.
Nearly $900,000.
The story was changing.
Lorraine had not merely been trying to choose Daniel's wife.
She had been attempting to repair a financial arrangement that was collapsing.
Daniel returned home exhausted.
Nia was drawing at the kitchen table.
He sat beside her.
She had drawn three people holding hands.
Daniel.
Maya.
Nia.
Far away, beneath a tree, she had drawn Lorraine.
Daniel swallowed.
“Nia?”
She looked up.
“Did Grandma ever say things like that before?”
Nia stopped coloring.
Daniel immediately regretted asking.
“You don't have to answer.”
Nia whispered, “She said Mommy stole you.”
Daniel closed his eyes.
“Anything else?”
“She said when you got rich, Mommy would take everything.”
Daniel's eyes opened.
“When did she say that?”
Nia shrugged.
“A lot.”
Maya had entered quietly behind them.
Her face hardened.
Lorraine had been psychologically preparing Nia for months.
That night, Daniel searched old messages.
One from Lorraine stood out.
Sent six months earlier:
Your father worked his entire life so that one day you could finally live the life you were supposed to have.
Daniel had interpreted it as ordinary nostalgia.
Now it sounded different.
He opened his father's old cloud-storage account.
Most folders were empty.
One wasn't.
It contained a single audio recording made nine days before Richard Mercer died.
Daniel pressed play.
His father's tired voice filled the room.
“Daniel, if you're hearing this, something has gone wrong.”
Daniel froze.
Richard continued.
“Do not let your mother control the trust after your thirty-ninth birthday.”
May you like
Then came the sentence that changed everything.
“She already took money once.”
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