Chapter 6: What Marcus Left Behind
Natalie was already awake when Emma knocked.
The light under her door had been visible from the hallway, and when Natalie opened it she was fully dressed — jeans, the college sweatshirt again, bare feet.
Noah was asleep in the center of the bed behind her, the baseball mascot wedged under his chin.
"Emma."
"Your brother needs you.
Cottage."
Natalie looked at her son for a moment.
Then she stepped into the hallway and pulled the door almost shut.
"Is it Griffin Harrington?" she asked.
Emma stopped walking.
"You know who he is?"
"I know he arrived this afternoon.
I saw his car from the window." Natalie's voice was steady in the way that comes from having already processed the fear privately.
"I know Brooke went to Dom's study an hour ago.
I know she came out looking like she'd lost something." She paused.
"I've been waiting."
They walked the garden path in silence.
The night was clear now, the rain entirely gone, the hedges still wet and dark.
The cottage windows were lit.
Dominic was standing when they entered.
He had moved the low table aside and set two chairs facing each other near the grate.
He gestured for Natalie to sit.
She sat.
"Tell me about Marcus's business," he said.
Natalie's hands went still in her lap.
"What about it?"
"Griffin Harrington told someone today that he has records of outstanding debts from Marcus's company.
He said he was planning to use them to complicate your position here."
The fire made a small sound in the grate.
"How much does he know?" Natalie asked.
Dominic looked at her carefully.
"Nat.
What is there to know?"
She was quiet for a long moment.
Long enough that Emma, standing near the door, felt the weight of it.
"Marcus had a business partner," Natalie said finally.
"For the last two years of his life.
A man named Devereux.
They were developing a commercial property in Providence together." She stopped.
"Six months before Marcus d\*ed, Devereux pulled his capital out of the project.
The whole thing collapsed.
Marcus had personally guaranteed a significant portion of the financing."
"How significant?"
"Eight hundred thousand dollars."
The number sat in the room.
"Marcus didn't tell you," Dominic said.
It wasn't a question.
"He told me there were complications.
He didn't tell me the scope." She looked at her hands.
"I found out three months after the funeral, when the creditor's attorney contacted me.
I've been working with a lawyer to negotiate a settlement.
It's been — it's been very slow."
"Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because you were already carrying enough." She looked up.
"Because you'd already opened your home to me and Noah.
Because I didn't want you to think—" She stopped.
"Think what?"
"That I came here because I needed rescuing.
Financially."
Dominic leaned forward.
"Natalie.
You came here because you're my sister and your husband d\*ed and you had nowhere else to go.
That's the only reason that matters."
Her jaw tightened.
She didn't cry, but it was close.
"Griffin Harrington is going to use this," she said.
"He's going to make it look like I'm here because I'm insolvent.
Like I'm a liability.
Like Noah's claim on the trust is somehow tainted by Marcus's debts."
"Marcus's business debts don't attach to the trust," Dominic said.
"The trust was established by Mom before Marcus and you were even married.
It's protected."
"Legally, maybe.
But publicly—"
"There is no public.
This is a private legal matter."
"Griffin will make it public if he needs to." She said it simply, without drama, the way someone states a fact they've already accepted.
"He'll leak it to the right people.
He'll make sure it reaches your board, your partners, anyone whose opinion matters to you.
He'll frame it as a question of judgment.
Why is Dominic Mercer sheltering a financially compromised sister and her child in the family estate?
What does that say about his own—"
"Natalie." Dominic's voice was firm.
"Stop."
She stopped.
"Griffin Harrington is not going to do any of that," he said, "because Griffin Harrington is going to be considerably too busy managing his own situation."
Natalie looked at him.
"What does that mean?"
Dominic reached into his coat and placed a second document on the table beside the first.
This one Emma hadn't seen before.
It was a single page, dense with figures, with a law firm's letterhead at the top.
"The trust petition Griffin filed," Dominic said.
"He filed it on behalf of Harrington Capital.
Which means Harrington Capital has a declared financial interest in the outcome of the Mercer family trust." He tapped the page.
"That is a matter of public record.
And Harrington Capital is currently in the middle of a regulatory review by the Rhode Island Division of Banking."
Natalie stared at the page.
"A company under regulatory review filed a legal action to seize control of a private family trust," she said slowly.
"Yes."
"That's—"
"Yes."
A long silence.
"He doesn't know you know about the review," Natalie said.
"No."
"So he came here tonight thinking he had the stronger position."
"He came here tonight thinking I was a man who'd just discovered his fiancée had been dishonest and was too emotionally disrupted to think clearly." Dominic sat back.
"He was wrong about that."
For the first time since Emma had knocked on her door, Natalie's shoulders dropped slightly.
Not relief — not yet — but something adjacent to it.
The particular loosening that comes when a person realizes they are not, in fact, standing alone.
"What happens now?" she asked.
"Tomorrow morning, my attorney files a formal response to the petition.
Tonight, I need everything you have on the Marcus debt situation — your lawyer's name, the creditor's name, the negotiation status."
"I can get it."
"Good." He stood.
"And Natalie.
The cottage is yours.
It was Mom's, and she left it to Noah, and that is not changing."
Natalie stood too.
She looked at her brother for a moment.
Then she said: "She was listening outside the window earlier.
When we talked this afternoon."
Emma went still.
"Brooke?" Dominic asked.
"I heard the gravel.
I didn't say anything because I didn't know what you'd already decided." Natalie looked at Emma.
"She heard everything we said in here."
Emma thought of the text message thread on Dominic's desk.
Fourteen months of messages.
*Stay close.*
"Then she knows you know about the petition," Emma said.
"Yes."
"And she knows you're not going to sign anything."
"Yes."
"And she knows Dominic is moving against Griffin."
Natalie nodded.
Emma looked at Dominic.
"She's going to do something tonight," Emma said.
"Before tomorrow morning."
May you like
Dominic's expression didn't change.
But he picked up his phone and made a call before they had even left the cottage.
