Chapter 5
PART 5
The therapy appointment went better than anyone dared imagine.
Dr. Helen Mercer’s office was on the twentieth floor of a private medical building in Streeterville, far above the traffic and noise. The room had soft green chairs, shelves full of toys, and windows overlooking a gray ribbon of Lake Michigan.
Eli did not speak.
But he answered.
He pointed to feeling cards. He placed toy animals in groups. He drew a house with a locked front gate, then added a door in the wall and colored it yellow.
Dr. Mercer looked at Grace over Eli’s bowed head.
That small look said more than any report.
Progress.
On the way out, Eli slipped his hand into Grace’s.
It was such a normal thing. A child holding a caregiver’s hand after an appointment. A quiet hallway. An elevator ride. Carson behind them, alert but calm.
Grace let herself breathe.
That was her mistake.
The private elevator opened onto the underground garage.
The air felt wrong immediately.
Too still. Too empty. The fluorescent lights hummed overhead. Their black armored SUV sat across the concrete level beside a row of private vehicles. Two Cross guards moved ahead.
Carson stopped.
Grace felt Eli’s fingers tighten.
“Back in the elevator,” Carson said.
The doors began closing behind them.
Then a gray van shot out from behind a concrete pillar and slammed into the SUV with a sound like a building collapsing.
Eli screamed without sound.
The garage exploded into motion.
Men appeared from the shadows. Not masked. Armed. Calm.
Carson drew his weapon and shoved Grace behind him. “Move!”
Gunfire shattered the air.
Grace grabbed Eli and ran low, dragging him behind a concrete support column as bullets punched into metal and glass. The noise was unbearable, cracking off the walls, echoing in her bones. Eli curled into himself on the floor, hands clamped over his ears.
“Look at me,” Grace said, crouching over him. “Look at me, baby.”
His eyes found hers, huge and wet.
“You stay behind me. No matter what.”
A guard fell near the SUV. Another fired from behind a car door. Carson moved like a machine, controlled and terrifying, but there were too many attackers.
Grace reached for her phone.
No signal.
Of course. They had jammed it.
A man in a brown leather jacket stepped over broken glass and walked straight toward their column. He had a badge clipped to his belt.
Detective Mark Ellery.
Grace had seen him at the estate twice. Damon had trusted him, or at least paid him enough to pretend trust existed.
Ellery smiled when he saw her.
“Grace Walker,” he called over the gunfire. “You have caused a lot of trouble.”
Grace pulled Eli tighter behind her.
Ellery raised his gun. “Move away from the boy.”
“No.”
His smile widened. “That word is going to get you killed.”
“Then I’ll die standing in front of him.”
Ellery’s eyes flicked to Eli. “Victor Vale sends his regards to Damon. But Julian sends his love.”
Grace froze.
Julian.
The name sliced through the chaos.
“What did you say?”
Ellery laughed. “Family is a dirty business, sweetheart.”
He stepped closer.
Grace’s mind moved faster than fear. To her left, mounted on the wall, hung a red fire extinguisher.
Ellery aimed at her chest.
Grace grabbed the extinguisher, ripped it from the bracket, and swung with everything she had.
The metal cylinder smashed into his wrist. The gun went off, the bullet striking the ceiling. Ellery howled. Grace swung again, hitting his face. He stumbled back, blood bursting from his nose.
She did not stop.
She hit him once more in the shoulder, driving him to the floor.
Then she grabbed his fallen gun and kicked it away.
Eli stared at her, shaking.
“Stay down,” she gasped.
Headlights flooded the garage.
Three black SUVs tore down the ramp so fast their tires screamed. Doors flew open before the vehicles stopped. Men in black surged out.
Damon Cross stepped from the lead SUV holding a rifle.
Grace had seen Damon angry. She had seen Damon cold. She had seen Damon wounded.
She had never seen this.
He looked like every nightmare in Chicago had chosen one body.
The attackers realized too late who had arrived.
The fight ended quickly. Brutally. Damon moved through the garage with a precision that turned violence into judgment. Carson shouted orders. Cross men surrounded the exits. Within seconds, the attackers were down or disarmed.
Then Damon dropped the weapon and ran.
Not to the wounded men.
Not to Carson.
To Eli.
To Grace.
He fell to his knees in the oil-stained concrete, pulling Eli into his arms so fiercely the boy almost disappeared inside him.
“Eli,” Damon rasped. “Eli, look at me. Are you hurt?”
Eli shook his head.
Damon’s hand moved over his hair, his face, his shoulders, checking him again and again like disbelief had made him blind.
Then he looked at Grace.
Her knees were bleeding. Her blouse was torn. Blood from Ellery had splattered across one sleeve. Her hands shook around nothing.
Damon reached for her but stopped, as if afraid she might break.
“He said Julian,” Grace whispered.
Damon went still.
“Ellery said Victor Vale sends regards. But Julian sends love.”
Carson, standing nearby, lowered his eyes.
The garage fell quiet.
Damon’s face changed in a way Grace would never forget. Rage came first, white-hot and lethal. Then grief, deeper than rage. Then something worse.
Recognition.
He had suspected enemies.
He had not wanted to suspect blood.
A small sound came from Eli.
Everyone froze.
The boy touched Damon’s cheek with a trembling hand.
His lips parted.
For the first time in two years, Eli Cross spoke.
“Papa.”
Damon’s entire body shook.
Eli looked from his father to Grace. His voice was tiny, rusty, miraculous.
“Grace saved me.”
Damon closed his eyes, and the great Damon Cross, feared by men who feared nothing, broke.
He pulled his son against his chest and wept in the middle of the ruined garage.
Grace knelt beside them.
Damon reached for her hand and held it like a lifeline.
But Grace could not stop thinking about Julian’s smile.
May you like
Or the way he had stood beneath Evelyn’s portrait and said Damon destroyed everything he touched.
She wondered, suddenly and terribly, if Evelyn’s death had not been an accident at all.
