CHAPTER 4 The Woman Who Ordered Grace's Death Had Been Waiting for This Day for Four Years
Nathan Vale did not go to the hospital.
He refused.
"It's a scratch."
The doctor standing beside him disagreed.
"It's a bullet wound."
Nathan calmly removed the blood-soaked jacket and handed it to one of his guards.
"I have children upstairs."
"They've already seen enough blood."
Grace stood silently in the hallway, watching the physician clean the wound.
Nathan never flinched.
Not once.
As if pain had become another language he had learned to live with.
The mansion no longer felt like a home.
It felt like a battlefield waiting for sunrise.
Every entrance was guarded.
Every vehicle was searched.
Armed security patrolled the gardens with military precision.
Grace couldn't shake one terrifying thought.
Someone wanted her dead before she had even spent a full day inside Nathan Vale's house.
The next morning, Emma quietly knocked on Grace's bedroom door.
She was still clutching the faded stuffed rabbit.
"I couldn't sleep."
Grace smiled softly.
"Neither could I."
Emma climbed onto the bed without asking.
Children often knew exactly where they felt safe.
"Are you leaving today?"
Grace looked down.
"I don't know."
Emma hugged the rabbit tighter.
"They always leave."
Grace gently brushed a loose curl away from the little girl's face.
"What happened to your mommy?"
Emma became very quiet.
"Daddy says Mommy is in heaven."
A pause.
"But Lucas says somebody sent her there."
Grace felt her chest tighten.
Before she could respond, Emma whispered something that made her blood run cold.
"I saw the bad lady once."
Grace frowned.
"What bad lady?"
Emma looked toward the closed bedroom door as if afraid someone might hear.
"The lady with the flower."
"What flower?"
"A black rose."
Grace immediately found Nathan.
They met inside his private office overlooking the lake.
He listened without interrupting as Grace repeated every word Emma had said.
When she finished, Nathan slowly stood.
His face had lost all color.
"Are you certain she said a black rose?"
Grace nodded.
Nathan walked toward an old wooden cabinet.
He unlocked it with a hidden key.
Inside were dozens of investigation files.
Photographs.
Police reports.
Newspaper clippings.
He pulled out one faded picture and placed it on the desk.
Grace stared.
It showed a beautiful dark-haired woman stepping out of a limousine.
Pinned to her black dress...
...was a single black rose.
"Who is she?"
Nathan's voice became almost emotionless.
"Isabella Moretti."
"The woman who declared war on my family."
Grace looked closer.
The woman smiled beautifully.
Yet something about her eyes felt empty.
Cold.
Predatory.
Nathan continued.
"Four years ago, my wife died when her car exploded."
"The police called it an accident."
"I knew it wasn't."
He slid another photograph across the desk.
This one showed the burned remains of a luxury SUV.
"I never proved Isabella ordered it."
Grace whispered,
"But you believe she did."
Nathan met her eyes.
"I know she did."
At that exact moment...
Nearly two hundred miles away...
Isabella Moretti stood inside the ballroom of an enormous estate.
More than thirty crime bosses had gathered around a marble table.
No one spoke while she entered.
She didn't need to demand respect.
She owned it.
One elderly boss finally broke the silence.
"You've started a war with Nathan Vale."
Isabella calmly poured herself a glass of champagne.
"No."
She smiled.
"I've resumed one."
Another man frowned.
"Why the girl?"
Isabella looked toward the massive fireplace.
"Because Nathan has finally made the mistake I've waited four years for."
"He cares again."
The room fell silent.
One of the younger bosses swallowed nervously.
"You think she's important?"
Isabella laughed softly.
"No."
"She isn't."
"Yet."
Back at the mansion...
Lucas stormed into Nathan's office without knocking.
"You're putting us all in danger!"
Nathan didn't react.
Lucas pointed directly at Grace.
"Ever since she arrived, bombs, snipers, spies..."
"What happens tomorrow?"
Grace quietly stood.
"I'll leave."
Both men looked at her.
She forced herself to smile.
"This isn't my home."
"If my leaving keeps your family safe..."
"It's the right thing."
Emma's voice suddenly echoed from the hallway.
"No!"
The little girl ran into the office.
She wrapped both arms around Grace's waist.
"You promised you wouldn't disappear."
Grace knelt beside her.
"I never promised that."
Emma's blue eyes filled with tears.
"But I believed you would stay."
Nathan watched silently.
Lucas looked away.
For the first time...
He seemed uncertain.
That evening, Nathan personally drove Grace toward the airport.
Neither of them spoke much.
Rain fell steadily across the windshield.
Halfway there, Nathan's phone rang.
One of his security chiefs.
Nathan answered immediately.
"What happened?"
The man's terrified voice exploded through the speaker.
"Sir!"
"They've breached the mansion!"
Nathan slammed on the brakes.
"What?"
"They never came for you..."
"They came for the children!"
Nathan spun the car around so violently the tires screamed against the wet pavement.
Grace gripped the dashboard.
"Who?"
The reply came through the phone.
"They left a message."
Nathan's knuckles turned white around the steering wheel.
"What message?"
The guard struggled to breathe.
"They painted it across the nursery wall..."
There was a long pause.
Then he whispered,
'One child for one wife.'
Nathan's expression changed.
Grace had never seen hatred look so calm.
He pressed the accelerator to the floor.
The Rolls-Royce shot back toward the mansion at nearly one hundred miles per hour.
Neither of them noticed the black motorcycle following from a distance.
The rider calmly raised a phone.
"They're on their way back."
Isabella's voice answered instantly.
"Excellent."
"Tell the second team to begin."
The rider hesitated.
"The second team?"
Isabella smiled as she looked at an old photograph of Grace's parents lying on her desk.
"Oh, yes."
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"I think it's time Grace learned..."
"...her family betrayed her long before last night."
