Chapter 3 - The Night of Ashes
"Sit," I ordered, gesturing to the chair across from me. My hands were shaking—a weakness I hadn't shown since I was a teenager on the streets of South Chicago.
Grace scrambled up from the floor and sat on the edge of the velvet seat, her knuckles white as she squeezed the locket.
"Talk," I said. "Every detail. If I catch a single lie, you won't leave this estate alive."
Grace wiped her face, taking a shuddering breath as she looked at the little girl who was now happily kicking her feet against the chair legs.
"Two years ago, I wasn't a housekeeper, Mr. Hale," Grace began, her voice soft but surprisingly steady once she started. "My name is Grace Miller. I was a pediatric trauma nurse at St. Jude’s. Two weeks before the attack on your safehouse, your late wife’s brother secretly hired me to be baby Lily's night nurse."
My eyes narrowed. "Arthur hired you?"
"Yes. He knew your inner circle had a leak," Grace said. "He didn't trust your enforcers. He told me that if anything ever seemed wrong, my only job was to get the baby out. On the night of October 14th, at three in the morning, the perimeter alarms were disarmed from the inside. Not blown up—disarmed."
A cold rage began to bloom in my gut. I had been told the Moretti hit squad blew the front gates with C4.
"I heard footsteps in the hallway before the shooting even started," Grace continued, tears spilling fresh from her eyes. "Professional killers. They weren't there to kidnap her for ransom, Mr. Hale. They were sent to execute her. I grabbed Lily, wrapped her in her mother's blanket, and dropped into the laundry chute that led to the storm cellar."
She swallowed hard, her chest heaving.
"As I ran into the woods behind the estate, I saw two of your own security guards standing by the escape van, talking to a man in a black mask. They threw incendiary grenades into the nursery window to burn the evidence. They set that fire themselves."
"Why didn't you bring her to me?" I roared, hitting the table with my palm. The glassware rattled. "I was her father! I had three hundred armed men waiting for my command!"
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Grace looked me straight in the eye, and for the first time, I saw a fierce, unyielding motherly fire in her gaze.
"Because I didn't know who ordered the hit!" Grace snapped back. "Your own guards cleared the path for those killers! If I had brought that baby back to your main estate that night, the mole inside your house would have finished the job before sunrise! I couldn't trust anyone... not even you."
