GRACE
The first hint that something wasn't right came during breakfast.
I was sitting on the terrace, enjoying the crisp autumn morning, when I overheard two of Rafe's men talking as they passed by the open doors.
"—still can't believe they hit the warehouse in Charlestown," one said, his voice low but not quite low enough. "Three of our guys in the hospital."
"Could've been worse," the other replied. "If Dante hadn't moved the shipment early?—"
They noticed me then, falling silent immediately. The taller one—Vincent, I thought his name was—nodded stiffly in my direction before they both hurried away, their posture tense with the awareness of having said too much.
I sipped my coffee, keeping my expression neutral despite the questions racing through my mind. A warehouse in Charlestown. Men in the hospital. A shipment moved early. None of which Rafe had mentioned to me, despite our increasingly open conversations about his business.
It wasn't the first strange detail I'd noticed in the past week. There had been others—hushed conversations that stopped when I entered rooms, increased security around the estate, Rafe spending long hours in his office with Dante and other men I didn't recognize.
Something was happening. Something I wasn't being told about.
I set down my coffee cup, staring out at the manicured gardens that had become as familiar to me as my own reflection. After two months at the Conti estate, I had settled into a routine that felt almost... normal. Breakfasts on the terrace. Mornings spent reading or playing piano. Afternoons exploring the grounds or swimming in the indoor pool. Evenings with Rafe—dinners, conversations, and increasingly, nights spent in his bed.
The mark he'd left on my shoulder had faded, but its meaning hadn't. I belonged to him now—not just as a captive, but as something more complex, more intimate, more willing than I ever could have imagined.
And yet, there were still walls between us. Still secrets. Still truths he kept from me, despite his promises of honesty.
I finished my breakfast and headed to the library, my favorite retreat when I needed to think. The room was empty, sunlight streaming through tall windows, illuminating dust motes dancing in the air. I ran my fingers along the spines of books, not really seeing the titles, my mind preoccupied with the fragments of conversation I'd overheard.
If there had been an attack on a Conti warehouse, if men had been hurt, if shipments had been moved—these were significant events. The kind of things Rafe should have mentioned, especially given our evolving relationship. His silence on these matters felt deliberate. Protective, perhaps, but also controlling.
I pulled a book from the shelf without looking at the title, taking it to my favorite window seat. As I settled in, something fell from between the pages—a folded newspaper clipping. I picked it up, unfolding it carefully.
The headline made my blood run cold: "O'Sullivan Expansion Continues: Graven Hill Properties Acquired After Mysterious Warehouse Fire."
The article was dated three weeks ago. It detailed how my father had purchased several properties in a notoriously rough neighborhood after the previous owner's warehouse had been destroyed in what police called "suspicious circumstances." There was speculation about organized crime involvement, about territory disputes, about the growing tension between "certain families" in the city's underworld.
My father's smiling face stared up at me from the page, the same practiced expression I'd seen in the newspaper during my trip to town. The expression of a man conducting business as usual, untroubled by personal concerns like a missing daughter.
I refolded the clipping, slipping it into my pocket. Someone had been reading this article—recently enough that it hadn't yet been returned to wherever it belonged. Someone in this house was tracking my father's business moves, his expansion into territory that had once belonged to someone else.
Territory that, perhaps, had once belonged to the Contis.
The pieces were beginning to form a pattern, though not one I fully understood yet. An attack on a Conti warehouse. My father acquiring properties after a "mysterious fire." Increased security around the estate. Hushed conversations and long meetings.
Something was happening between the Contis and the O'Sullivans. Something beyond my abduction, beyond the negotiation I'd overheard months ago. Something current and escalating.
And Rafe wasn't telling me about it.
I spent the rest of the morning in the library, ostensibly reading but actually watching, listening, gathering information. Staff members came and went, some nodding politely in my direction, others avoiding eye contact. I noticed things I might have missed before—the way certain names were never spoken in my presence, the way conversations shifted to safer topics when I entered a room, the way even Marco, who had become almost friendly in recent weeks, kept his distance today.
By lunchtime, I had decided on a direct approach. If Rafe was keeping things from me, I would simply ask him. Demand answers. Remind him of his promise of honesty.
I found him in his office, bent over papers spread across his desk, his expression focused and grim. He looked up when I entered, his face immediately softening into the smile he seemed to reserve just for me.
"Grace," he said, standing and coming around the desk to greet me. "I was just thinking about you."
"Were you?" I kept my tone light, accepting the brief kiss he pressed to my lips. "What were you thinking?"
"That dinner tonight should be special," he replied, his hands settling on my waist in a gesture that had become familiar. "Just the two of us. In my private dining room."
The invitation would have pleased me under other circumstances. Now, it felt like a distraction. "That sounds lovely," I said, stepping back slightly. "But I was hoping we could talk now."
