Her First Day as a Prosecutor Should Have Been a Triumph—Then She Opened a Case Tied to Her Brother

The Newark Public Library archives smelled of vinegar, deteriorating paper, and fifty years of accumulated soot.

Felicity sat at a microfiche machine in the basement, the green light reflecting in her exhausted eyes. She had called in sick to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. She had turned off her phone.

On the screen before her was the front page of the *Newark Star-Ledger*, dated October 16, 1999.

*MERCER HEIRESS VANISHES: MOB WAR FEARED.*

The grainy photograph on the screen showed a four-year-old girl with dark curly hair and large, solemn eyes. She was holding a cheap stuffed bear. Around her tiny wrist was a bright pink plastic bracelet.

Beside the child’s picture was a photograph of a twelve-year-old boy standing on the courthouse steps behind his father.

The boy’s face was unsmiling. His jaw was clenched with an unnatural, terrifying fury. His gray eyes stared directly into the camera lens with a promise that seemed to transcend the printed newsprint.

It was Knox Mercer.

"You were looking for me," Felicity whispered, her throat dry as dust.

She scrolled further into the archives.

Catherine Mercer’s obituary from 2001. *Died of grief at St. Barnabas Hospital.*

Patrick Mercer’s obituary from 2012. *Found dead at his desk, surrounded by files on missing children.*

All of it had been real.

Her entire life—the damp foster homes in Trenton, the hunger in Camden, the silent group home three miles from her own childhood school—had not been an accident of neglect. It had been an execution of identity.

Warren Hail had stolen her, erased her name, and cast her into the bureaucratic meat-grinder of the state foster system to watch Patrick Mercer slowly bleed to death from the inside out.

And now, twenty-five years later, Nelson Gould had handed her Knox Mercer’s indictment.

*Why?*

Why would Gould assign the long-lost sister to prosecute her own brother?

Unless Gould knew.

Unless the people who backed Warren Hail were still pulling the strings from the highest floors of the Department of Justice. If Felicity convicted Knox, Knox would spend his remaining days in ADX Florence, his empire dismantled, while Felicity would be the unwitting instrument of his destruction.

And if Knox fought back and destroyed Felicity? He would have unknowingly murdered his own sister.

It was the ultimate, poisoned revenge: a trap designed to make the Mercer family tear itself apart.

"Miss Davenport."

Felicity jumped out of her chair, knocking her legal pad to the floor.

Standing between two rows of dusty filing cabinets was Colton Price. He was not wearing his usual sharp designer suit; he wore a heavy trench coat and dark driving gloves.

"Don't run," Colton said calmly, raising his empty hands. "If we wanted to hurt you, you wouldn't have made it out of Brooklyn this morning."

"Where is he?" Felicity demanded, her voice shaking with an unbearable mixture of rage and terror. "Where is Knox?"

"He’s waiting for you," Colton said. "Not in a safehouse. Not with armed guards. Just him. In the only place he felt he could meet you without lies."

"I am a federal prosecutor!" Felicity cried, though the words sounded hollow even to her own ears. "He is an indicted felon under federal surveillance! If I get into a car with you, I am committing obstruction of justice!"

Colton looked at her with an expression that held no mockery—only deep, tragic pity.

"Miss Davenport... or should I say, Rosalind? You stopped being just a prosecutor the moment you picked up that pink bracelet twenty-five years ago. The Hail syndicate isn't waiting for the grand jury. They have four federal judges and two deputy directors on their retainer. They’re moving to eliminate both of you tonight."

Colton stepped aside, gesturing toward the emergency exit at the end of the aisle.