Chapter 6
Dad wanted to send security immediately.
Mara told him no.
“Grant wants you emotional,” she said.
Dad looked like he might break the table.
“He is holding my wife’s ring.”
“And if you storm in, he becomes the victim of a powerful father-in-law.”
I stood between them, watching Grant’s frozen face on my phone.
For seven years, I had mistaken his cruelty for strength.
Now I saw the truth.
He was terrified.
And terrified men destroy things to feel big.
“He won’t sell it,” I said.
Dad looked at me.
“He wants leverage. If he sells it, it’s gone. If he keeps it, he thinks I’ll answer.”
Mara nodded.
“Exactly.”
“So we give him something else.”
“What?” Dad asked.
“Me.”
“No.”
His answer came instantly.
“I’m not meeting him alone,” I said.
“I’m not meeting him at all. I’m calling him while police trace it.”
Mara smiled.
“There she is.”
I called Grant.
He answered on the first ring.
“Finally.”
“Where are my documents?”
“Safe.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
“You sound different.”
“I am.”
He laughed bitterly.
“Your father script that for you?”
“No. You did.”
Silence.
Then he said, “Call off the board complaint. Tell the police Vanessa lied. Tell your father to unfreeze my accounts.”
“And my mother’s ring?”
“You get it back.”
I looked at Dad.
His face was carved from stone.
“What about the files you sold to Northline?”
“I didn’t sell anything.”
“Grant.”
He exhaled.
“Fine. I shared information. You have no idea how hard it is to build something when every room compares you to Arthur Vance.”
There it was.
The real wound.
Not poverty.
Not unfairness.
Ego.
“You were given chances other men would have begged for.”
“I was given scraps from your father’s table.”
“You were given trust.”
He laughed.
“I was married to a woman who made me feel small.”
“No,” I said.
“You married a woman you needed to keep small.”
He went quiet.
The trace alert flashed on Mara’s tablet.
Location acquired.
Warehouse district.
Dad’s security moved.
Police moved too.
I kept Grant talking.
“Did you ever love me?”
The question surprised both of us.
His answer came too slowly.
“I loved what we could be.”
“That means no.”
He snapped.
“You think you’re innocent? You hid behind your father for years, judging me, correcting me, making me look like a fool.”
“I saved your deals.”
“I didn’t ask you to.”
“You used every correction.”
“Because you owed me loyalty.”
“No,” I said.
“I owed you honesty. You hated that more.”
In the background, I heard a sound.
Metal door.
Voices.
Grant breathed sharply.
“What did you do?”
“Learned my place.”
He cursed and hung up.
Thirty minutes later, Russell called.
“We have him.”
My knees weakened.
“And the ring?”
“Recovered.”
I sat down hard.
Dad closed his eyes.
Grant had not been alone.
Two men were with him.
One from Northline.
One from a private security firm hired under Vanessa’s name.
They had passports.
Cash.
And my documents.
Grant was planning to run.
Not fight.
Run.
At the station, I saw him through glass.
He looked smaller without the suit jacket.
Angrier too.
He turned when I entered.
“You came.”
“I wanted to see what was left.”
His mouth twisted.
“Enjoying this?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
I stepped closer to the glass.
“You think revenge feels like joy because cruelty made you happy.”
He flinched.
I continued.
“This feels like surgery.”
His eyes narrowed.
“What?”
“Painful. Necessary. Long overdue.”
He looked away first.
Good.
Mara collected my documents.
Dad opened the velvet box and handed me my mother’s ring.
I held it in my palm.
Safe.
Cold.
Mine.
Then Mara’s phone rang.
She listened.
Her expression changed.
“What is it?” I asked.
She looked at Dad.
“Vanessa just gave prosecutors something new.”
“What?”
Mara’s voice lowered.
“Grant wasn’t only stealing from Vance.”
Dad’s face darkened.
“Who else?”
May you like
Mara looked at me.
“Claire.”
