Unwanted Blood (Harper) novel Chapter 55

Chapter 55

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Chapter 55

Harper’s POV

Michael Westbrook arrived at two o’clock sharp.

He was older than I’d expected-early sixties, with silver hair combed back. He wore a dark suit, no tie, and carried a single manila envelope under his arm.

Adrian met him at the front door and escorted him to the study. I was already inside, sitting in the chair opposite the desk.

Michael sat down without greeting me. He set the envelope on the desk and opened it, revealing a stack of papers inside.

“You have fifteen minutes,” he said coldly.

I didn’t waste time. “My mother. The morning she went into the delivery room. She saw you. What did she say?”

Michael’s expression didn’t change. He looked down at the envelope, his fingers resting lightly on the edge.

“She told me that if she didn’t make it out of that room, I was to deliver a document to someone I

trusted.”

My pulse quickened. “A document. What kind of document? And who did you give it to?”

He looked up. His eyes were grey, unreadable. “I gave it to your father.”

The words landed like a stone. My father. But he’s already dead.

“Did he read it?” I asked.

“I don’t know.” Michael’s voice was steady. “He took the envelope. I never saw it again. Then I heard he was dead. Car accident on the highway. From that day on, no one knew where the file

was.”

I sat very still. “What was in the document?”

Michael hesitated. For the first time, discomfort flickered across his face.

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Chapter 55

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“A recording,” he said. “Your mother made it before the delivery. She spoke into a dictaphone I never listened to it. I was paid to deliver it, nothing more.”

Fifteen minutes. The grandfather clock in the hallway chimed the half-hour.

Michael stood. He closed the envelope, tucked it under his arm, and walked to the door without another word.

The study went quiet.

I sat in the chair for a long time after he left.

Back in my room, I opened the notes app on my phone and typed:

Mother made a recording before delivery. Gave to Michael Westbrook. He gave it to my father. Father died in car crash later. Recording lost.

I read the words twice more.

My mother’s letter had said the evidence was split into three parts. One with Everly. One with Martha. The third-me.

But Michael was describing a fourth.

A recording. Given to my father. Lost in his death.

Two possibilities: either my mother never told me about it in her letter deliberately because she didn’t think I’d ever find the letter; or Michael wasn’t telling me everything.

I closed the notes app and locked the phone.

I wasn’t going to share this with Adrian. Not yet.

–

Ryder’s POV

Playa del Carmen was exactly what I’d expected-a tourist trap layered over a town that had been swallowed by resort money and cartel influence. The streets were a maze of souvenir shops, beach bars, and narrow alleys that smelled like salt and diesel.

Martha’s address led me to a small apartment building three blocks from the beach. White stucco, cracked paint, a rusted gate that hadn’t been locked in years.

But the street wasn’t empty.

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Chapter 55

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I counted three men within a hundred-meter radius. One sitting at a café across the street, nursing the same coffee for two hours. One leaning against a motorcycle parked at the corner, phone in hand, eyes scanning. One inside a parked SUV with tinted windows, engine off, driver’s door cracked just enough to hear the street.

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