“Sophie,” he said, voice cracking.
She flinched.
He dropped to his knees again, indifferent to Grace seeing him crumble.
“I am so sorry,” he whispered. “You tried to tell me, and I didn’t listen.”
Sophie cried harder. “I thought you didn’t want to know.”
Dominic pulled her into a hug.
“I wanted the pain to be simple,” he said into her hair. “I wanted an enemy I could bury. I didn’t want to believe the knife came from inside the house.”
Grace stood there, chest tight.
Then Dominic looked up at her.
“Take her upstairs.”
Grace grasped what he was about to do.
“No.”
His eyes went hard. “Grace.”
“No. Not like this.”
“He killed my wife.”
“And if you walk out that door as a murderer, you prove Elena right that this life steals every good thing from you.”
Dominic rose. “Do not ask mercy for him.”
“I’m not. I’m asking justice for Sophie.”
He shook his head. “You don’t understand my world.”
“I understand children,” Grace said fiercely. “If you kill Victor tonight, Sophie loses you too. Maybe not to prison. Maybe not to death. But to that cold place inside you where love can’t reach. She just got her father back. Don’t hand him to revenge.”
Dominic’s hands shook.
He looked at Sophie.
She was watching him with terrified eyes.
Not terrified of him.
Terrified for him.
That halted him more effectively than any weapon could have.
He shut his eyes.
When he opened them, he looked decades older.
“Call Marcus,” he said.
Grace breathed out.
“What will you do?”
Dominic looked at the paused image of Elena on the monitor.
“What I should have done years ago,” he said. “Listen.”
But Victor was not a man who sat and waited.
At 2:11 a.m., the mansion lost electricity.
Emergency lights bathed the corridor in crimson.
Grace woke immediately.
Sophie was sleeping in the guest room connected to Grace’s suite because neither had wanted to be alone after the video.
The child sat up, gasping. “Is it fire?”
“No,” Grace said, already in motion. “Shoes. Now.”
Her phone had no reception.
The house alarm remained silent.
That was worse.
It meant whoever had cut the power knew the codes.
Grace grabbed Sophie’s hand and opened the door.
The hallway beyond was empty.
Eerily empty.
At the far end, Mrs. Donnelly lay collapsed near the wall.
Grace’s blood ran cold.
She rushed to her and verified her pulse.
Alive.
Drugged or unconscious.
Sophie whimpered.
Grace pulled her close. “Ghost game. No sound.”
They moved toward the service stairs that led to the panic room. Grace knew the path because Marcus had trained her on it after an incident at the park. At the time, she thought he was being obsessive.
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