Now she silently thanked him.
Halfway down the staircase, voices drifted upward.
“…girl first. Hale won’t move if we have the girl.”
Grace froze.
Sophie’s nails pierced her palm.
A second voice replied, “And the waitress?”
Victor’s voice followed, smooth as liquid silver.
“Sentimental liabilities should be removed.”
Sophie’s face broke.
Grace covered her mouth softly and shook her head.
Not now.
Grief later.
Survival now.
They retreated up the stairs, one step at a time.
Then a floorboard groaned behind them.
Grace turned.
A man stood at the upper landing.
Not one of Dominic’s.
He lunged.
Grace shoved Sophie behind her and swung the heavy brass candle holder she had grabbed from the hall table. It struck his wrist. He snarled. The pistol clattered down two steps.
Grace kicked it away, but he seized her by the hair and slammed her shoulder into the banister.
Pain flashed white behind her eyes.
Sophie screamed.
The man reached for the child.
Grace drove her elbow into his windpipe with every ounce of strength.
He stumbled.
Then Dominic appeared from the shadows behind him and struck him once, hard and surgical.
The man collapsed.
Dominic’s face was gashed near the temple. His shirt was shredded. He looked like a nightmare wearing a father’s terror.
“Sophie.”
She sprinted into his arms.
He held her for a heartbeat, then forced himself to let go. “We move now.”
“No,” Grace whispered. “Victor’s below. He expects the safe room.”
Dominic looked at her.
Grace’s mind sprinted through the floor plan, security protocols, everything Marcus had taught her, everything she had observed while being dismissed.
“Elena’s art room,” she said. “You sealed it, but it has the old exterior balcony. Does it still connect to the greenhouse roof?”
Dominic stared. “How do you know that?”
“Sophie drew it.”
Sophie nodded through sobs. “Mommy used to take me there to see the stars.”
Dominic’s face contorted with agony. “Yes. It connects.”
They ran.
Not toward the bunker beneath the house, but toward the one room sorrow had locked away.
Elena’s art studio was at the end of the western wing.
Dominic broke the seal with a key he wore around his neck.
The room smelled faintly of dust, linseed oil, and lavender.
Canvases leaned against the walls. Sketches were pinned above a desk. A half-finished work sat beneath a white shroud.
Sophie stopped.
“Mommy’s room,” she whispered.
Dominic had not stepped inside in two years.
Grace saw what it cost him to cross the threshold.
But he did it because his daughter required him to.
That was love, not as a poem, but as action.
They reached the balcony doors.
Bolted.
Dominic swore softly and fumbled for the key.
Footsteps thundered in the corridor.
No time.
Grace grabbed a metal tool from the table and shoved it into the old mechanism.
“Grace,” Dominic said, “move.”
“No.”
The latch held.
Sophie cried, “They’re coming!”
Grace turned it harder.
The tool slipped, cutting her hand.
Blood dripped down her wrist.
Dominic aimed his weapon at the door just as Victor’s voice called from the other side.
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