Chapter 8 - Marcus Comes to the Door
Marcus arrived at my father’s house during a thunderstorm.
Alone.
Or so he wanted us to believe.
Security spotted the second car two streets away.
He stood on the porch in the rain.
I watched through the camera.
“Grace.”
I opened the intercom.
“Leave.”
“I need five minutes.”
“No.”
“I’m your husband.”
“Not for much longer.”
His face tightened.
Then softened deliberately.
I knew that expression.
The one he used when cruelty stopped working.
“I made mistakes.”
I almost admired the understatement.
“Sarah meant nothing.”
“She seemed important when your mother was dragging me across the floor.”
“I was shocked.”
“You were bored.”
He closed his eyes.
“Grace, please.”
There was that word again.
Please.
But now I understood something.
Marcus only begged when power shifted away from him.
“I love you.”
I felt nothing.
So I asked the one question that mattered.
“When did you learn about my trust?”
His face changed.
Barely.
But enough.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Wrong answer.”
I disconnected.
He pounded on the door.
“Grace!”
I walked away.
Then he screamed something that stopped me.
“That money belongs to my son too!”
My son.
Not our baby.
His heir.
His asset.
I returned to the monitor.
“You don’t even know if the baby is a boy.”
Silence.
Marcus stared at the camera.
And suddenly I understood.
He did know.
“How?”
His face drained.
We had chosen not to learn the sex.
At least I had.
Marcus had accessed my medical records.
Later, investigators confirmed it.
He had bribed an employee at the private obstetrics clinic.
The baby was a boy.
Marcus had known for three months.
He had kept it from me because Evelyn wanted the “perfect Sterling heir.”
May you like
The protective order was expanded that night.
And Marcus was ordered to stay away.
