Chapter 1 - The Condo He Wanted
Six weeks before the family dinner, Adrian first asked Elena to transfer the condo into his name.
He did not call it a demand.
He called it a practical solution.
They were eating breakfast in the glass-walled kitchen of the Mercer family estate when he placed a blue folder beside her coffee.
“My accountant prepared everything,” he said.
Elena looked at the folder but did not touch it.
“Everything for what?”
“For the condo.”
“What about it?”
Adrian smiled with the patience he used when speaking to employees he considered slow.
“You know the family investment division is restructuring. Temporarily placing the property under my name would improve our position with the bank.”
“The condo has nothing to do with Mercer Holdings.”
“It will be used as collateral for less than a year.”
“No.”
His smile weakened.
Elena had inherited the condo from her aunt Lydia before marrying Adrian. It was not the largest property owned by anyone at the Mercer table, but it was the only home Elena possessed without their permission.
It stood on the twenty-third floor of Ashbourne Tower, overlooking the river. Lydia had purchased it decades earlier, when the neighborhood had still been full of warehouses and abandoned factories. By the time Elena inherited it, the building was worth twelve times its original value.
Adrian had mocked the condo when they first met.
After their wedding, he began asking questions about its market price.
Three months later, he suggested renting it.
Then he suggested selling it.
Now he wanted Elena to sign it over to him.
“My aunt left that property to me,” Elena said. “It stays in my name.”
Adrian leaned back.
“We are married.”
“That does not make everything mine yours.”
“It should.”
The coldness of the answer disturbed her more than if he had shouted.
Elena closed the folder and pushed it toward him.
Adrian did not take it.
“My mother is hosting dinner tonight,” he said. “We will discuss it then.”
“There is nothing to discuss.”
“There is always something to discuss when family assets are involved.”
“It is not a family asset.”
Adrian stood.
He was already dressed for work in a dark suit, his silver cuff links bearing the Mercer crest. He picked up his phone, but before leaving, he placed one hand on the back of Elena’s chair.
“You are making this more difficult than it needs to be.”
She looked up at him.
“For whom?”
His fingers tightened around the chair.
Then he released it and walked away.
Elena waited until she heard the front door close. Only then did she open the blue folder again.
The first page described the transfer as temporary.
The second page gave Adrian authority to borrow against the condo.
The third page granted Mercer Capital the right to sell the property if a debt remained unpaid for more than thirty days.
Elena read it twice.
Then she noticed the final page.
Her name had already been typed beneath the signature line.
Below it was the name of a witness.
Maya Mercer.
Elena had met Maya only three times. Adrian described his younger half sister as unstable, jealous and addicted to causing trouble.
Yet Maya’s name appeared on a document that would allow Adrian to take Elena’s property.
Elena photographed every page.
As she closed the folder, a message appeared on her phone from an unknown number.
Do not sign anything with my name on it.
A second message followed.
I never agreed to be your witness.
May you like
Then a third.
Your condo is the reason he married you.
