Vincent took one slow step closer. “I love you. I think perhaps I did from the moment you opened that apartment door and chose compassion over fear. But I knew it the day Mia laughed at her birthday. And I knew it again when I saw your blood after the attack and understood that if anything happened to you, I would tear apart the world with my bare hands.”
Grace’s eyes filled before she could stop them.
He lifted his free hand and touched her cheek so gently it broke her heart a little.
“You don’t have to say anything tonight.”
“I love you too,” she whispered.
The relief in his face was so profound it almost looked like pain.
Grace gave a helpless watery laugh. “I tried not to.”
“Were you unsuccessful?”
“Very.”
That made him smile—a real, quiet smile meant only for her.
Then he bent and kissed her.
It was not the consuming kiss of movies or fevered fantasy. It was slower, deeper, and somehow more dangerous because it felt like home discovered at last. Grace rested a hand against his chest and felt the hard steady beat of his heart under her palm. When they parted, he pressed his forehead to hers.
“I want to be better,” he said. “Not for reputation. For you. For Mia.”
“You already are trying.”
“Trying is not the same as becoming.”
“Then become.”
Something fierce and tender passed through his eyes.
From that night on, their relationship remained private from the world but not from the house. Marcus knew. Elena knew. The cook knew. Mia suspected and then confirmed it by walking into the morning room two days later while Vincent kissed Grace’s temple and announcing, “Finally.”
Neither adult recovered quickly from that.
Mia did.
She was delighted.
For the first time in years, the estate began to feel less like a mausoleum and more like a home reassembling itself. Dinner became family dinner. Sundays sometimes meant a drive to visit Maggie together. Vincent made time to read bedtime stories if he was home. Grace began to see in him not just the feared boss or the grieving widower, but the man he might have been if violence had not recruited him so young.
That, perhaps, was what made the next blow so cruel.
It came on a mild afternoon while Grace was helping Mia with a jigsaw puzzle.
Vincent entered the room with Marcus close behind him. The color had gone from Vincent’s face, leaving him unnaturally composed in the way people sometimes become right before catastrophe fully lands.
“Grace,” he said. “Come with me.”
Her stomach dropped.
In the office Marcus shut the door.
Vincent did not sit. He simply looked at her and said, “Maggie’s been taken.”
For a second Grace did not understand the sentence.
Then understanding hit all at once.
“No.”
The word came out thin and useless.
Marcus stepped forward. “A group hit the medical facility this morning. Two guards injured. Your grandmother was taken before backup arrived.”
Grace’s knees buckled. Vincent caught her before she hit the floor.
“Ricci sent word,” he said tightly. “He wants a trade.”
Grace already knew.
“For me,” she whispered.
Vincent’s silence was answer enough.
Everything inside her turned to ice.
Maggie. Frail, recovering, dependent on medication and careful monitoring. Maggie in the hands of men cruel enough to use an elderly woman as leverage.
“This is my fault,” Grace said.
“It is not.”
“If I had never come here—”
“He would have found another weakness.”
“But he found this one.”
Tears spilled fast and helplessly. Vincent gripped her shoulders.
“Listen to me. This is Ricci’s fault. Not yours.”
“What are you going to do?”
“Get her back.”
“How?”
He hesitated only a second. “First I move you and Mia somewhere secure.”
“No.”
He stared at her.
“No,” Grace said again, louder now, the panic sharpening into resolve. “I’m not hiding while my grandmother dies because of me.”
His voice dropped into that dangerous register she knew meant he was holding on to control by force. “Grace.”
“Ricci wants me. That means he keeps Maggie alive until he has leverage. If I go—”
“You are not going.”
“It’s the only opening.”
Marcus remained still as stone, but his eyes flicked once between them in a way that said he understood exactly what Grace was proposing.
Vincent did too, and hated it instantly.
“I won’t use you as bait.”
“Then he’ll kill her when you storm the place.”
His jaw clenched.
Grace stepped closer, tears still wet on her face but her voice steadier now. “If I show up, he waits. If he waits, your men get a chance.”
Vincent closed his eyes. She could almost see the war inside him—the strategist recognizing the plan, the man in love wanting to destroy it.
When he opened his eyes again, they were dark with anguish.
“If anything happens to you…”
Grace touched his face with both hands. “You promised you’d protect me.”
“I will.”
“Then trust yourself.”
For a long moment neither moved.
At last Vincent turned to Marcus. “Prepare it.”
Marcus nodded once and left to make war.
Vincent pulled Grace into him and held her so tightly she could hardly breathe.
“Bring her back to me,” Grace whispered.
“I’m bringing you both back,” he said.
She believed him.
She had to.
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