Chapter 6 - FORTY-EIGHT HOURS
Nathan moved Grace and Lily before midnight.
He chose neither the estate nor one of his company properties. Instead, Daniel arranged a secure residence owned by a retired federal judge outside the city. The location was known to only five people, all of whom had independent reasons to distrust Sebastian Vale.
Grace hated leaving the hotel under security escort.
“I don’t want Lily growing up thinking men with guns are normal,” she said.
“Neither do I,” Nathan replied. “I want her alive long enough to complain about my parenting.”
Grace looked at him sharply.
Nathan realized it was the first time he had referred to himself as a parent.
Something softened in her face.
At the safe house, Lily treated the situation like an adventure because the adults carefully refused to call it anything else. She named the attic bedroom “the cloud room,” discovered a wooden swing behind the house, and demanded pancakes for dinner. Nathan sat at the kitchen table while she drowned three small pancakes in syrup and wondered how children could bring ordinary life into rooms full of fear.
After Lily went to sleep, Grace found Nathan on the back porch.
Snow had begun to fall.
“You don’t have to stand watch yourself,” she said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
Nathan stared into the dark tree line. “Because I missed four years.”
Grace leaned against the railing, protecting her injured shoulder.
“You can’t punish yourself into getting them back.”
“I believed him.”
“Your father?”
“Yes.”
“You trusted your parent.”
Nathan laughed quietly. “That sounds almost innocent when you say it.”
“It was.”
He looked at her.
Grace’s expression was steady. “What Charles did was deliberate. What Sebastian did was deliberate. What Victoria did was deliberate. You believing someone you loved is not the same thing.”
Nathan wanted to accept that.
He could not yet.
The forty-eight-hour deadline expired at six the following evening.
At 6:03, financial journalists began receiving anonymous documents alleging historic corruption inside Cole Holdings. By 6:20, two cable networks were running breaking-news banners. By seven, the company’s general counsel had confirmed federal regulators were requesting records.
Sebastian had fired his first shot.
Nathan responded at 7:30 with a press conference.
His communications team begged him not to appear. Daniel warned him that anything he said could create liability. The board demanded a closed session instead.
Nathan ignored all of them.
He stood behind a plain podium without the Cole logo and faced a room packed with reporters.
“Documents released today appear to contain evidence of serious misconduct committed under the leadership of my late father,” he began. “My company will not deny verified facts, obstruct investigators, or attack people who expose wrongdoing.”
The room erupted.
Nathan raised one hand.
“I have ordered an independent forensic audit. I have also placed myself under voluntary review for any decisions made during the period in question. If the company broke the law, the company will cooperate. If executives broke the law, they will be accountable. A family name is not a defense.”
The statement stunned the market.
Sebastian had expected denial.
Nathan gave him sunlight.
In the safe house living room, Grace watched the press conference with Lily asleep against her lap. When Nathan returned after midnight, she was waiting.
“That was dangerous,” she said.
“Yes.”
“You could lose the company.”
“Yes.”
“Are you scared?”
Nathan removed his coat.
“Terrified.”
Grace nodded as if that answer mattered.
The next morning, something unexpected happened. Cole Holdings shares fell sharply at opening, then partially recovered after several institutional investors praised Nathan’s cooperation. Employees began posting messages supporting transparency. Two former executives contacted federal investigators voluntarily.
Sebastian’s weapon had not disappeared.
But it had lost some of its force.
Then Victoria walked into a police station.
Detective Ruiz called Nathan shortly afterward.
“She gave a statement,” Ruiz said. “She admitted striking Grace.”
Nathan closed his eyes.
“Did she say why?”
“Yes. She also gave us information about her father.”
The case changed immediately.
Victoria described the surveillance of Grace, the threats, the hidden files, and the pressure surrounding the marriage. Her attorney negotiated no immunity, only consideration for cooperation.
Sebastian responded by publicly calling his daughter emotionally unstable.
That was his mistake.
For the first time, Victoria stopped protecting him.
She released an audio recording.
In it, Sebastian could be heard instructing her to “contain the Mercer problem” before the wedding and warning that Nathan would “fall in line once the child disappears from view.”
The phrase went viral within hours.
Disappear from view.
Grace listened to the recording once and turned it off.
Lily was coloring at the table.
Nathan saw the fear in Grace’s eyes.
“What?” he asked.
Grace lowered her voice. “There was a car.”
“When?”
“Last year. Someone followed us from preschool twice. I thought I was imagining it.”
Nathan felt sick.
“Why didn’t you tell anyone?”
“Tell who? The police that a black sedan existed? Tell your father, who was dead? Tell you, when I still didn’t know what you believed?”
Nathan had no answer.
That evening, the second DNA laboratory confirmed the same result.
Nathan was Lily’s father.
Daniel handed him the report in the safe house kitchen.
Nathan stared at the paper, then at the child drawing a family with green crayons.
“Who’s that?” he asked.
Lily pointed.
“Mommy.”
“And that?”
“Me.”
There was a third figure, much taller than the others.
Nathan tried not to assume.
“And him?”
Lily looked at him as if he were stupid.
“You.”
The drawing showed three people under an enormous yellow sun.
Nathan smiled.
Then he noticed a fourth figure at the edge of the page.
A man in black.
“Who is that?”
Lily’s crayon stopped.
“The park man’s friend.”
Grace went still.
Nathan crouched beside Lily.
“What friend?”
Lily pointed to the dark figure.
“He watched us.”
Grace’s face drained of color.
Nathan looked at Daniel.
May you like
Charles had not acted alone.
And the man who watched Lily might still be working for Sebastian.
