Chapter 9 - Grace Holloway’s HouseGrace Holloway lived in a yellow farmhouse two hours north of the city, surrounded by apple trees, wild grass, and fences that looked decorative until Daniel noticed the cameras hidden in the birdhouses.
Dominic noticed the reinforced windows.
Marcus noticed the fresh tire tracks.
Mia noticed the children’s shoes lined neatly beside the porch.
“Women live here,” she said.
Sloan, who had insisted on leading the approach, gave her a careful look.
“How do you know?”
Mia stared at the shoes.
“Because people who run from monsters line shoes up by size. It makes leaving faster.”
No one argued.
Harper slept against Mia in the back seat, exhausted by terror. Rosa and Ana had been moved to federal protection. Antonia was in custody. Claire was silent in a holding room. Vittorio was surrounded by agents and lawyers, refusing to speak except to ask for espresso.
Nathan had been brought because he knew Grace Holloway’s name.
Dominic hated that he still needed him.
The farmhouse front door opened before anyone knocked.
An elderly Black woman stepped onto the porch with a shotgun held low but ready. Her white hair was braided close to her head. She wore jeans, boots, and a cardigan the color of autumn leaves.
She looked at Nathan first.
Her expression became stone.
“Well,” she said. “Hell finally learned to limp.”
Nathan lowered his eyes.
“Grace.”
Dominic stepped forward.
“Grace Holloway?”
Her gaze moved over him.
“You have his face.”
Dominic did not ask whose.
He knew.
“I am not here for Vittorio.”
“Men always arrive carrying their fathers and claiming their hands are empty.”
Mia opened the SUV door and stepped out with Harper in her arms.
Grace’s expression changed immediately.
She lowered the shotgun.
“Mia Carter.”
Mia froze.
“You know me?”
Grace came down one porch step.
“I knew your mother.”
Mia’s eyes filled.
Grace looked at Harper.
“And that must be the reason you kept breathing.”
Mia began to cry silently.
Dominic watched the old woman’s face soften with grief.
Sloan approached, badge visible.
“Ms. Holloway, I’m Agent Rebecca Sloan. We need to ask you about Elena Vale.”
Grace’s gaze sharpened.
“No, you need to ask yourselves why it took six years.”
Dominic’s chest tightened.
“She was here?”
Grace did not answer.
Instead, she looked at Harper.
“There’s lemonade inside. No men with guns past the kitchen.”
Marcus almost smiled.
Daniel did not.
Sloan said, “We need to secure the property first.”
Grace lifted the shotgun again slightly.
“You can secure my porch with your shoes off or you can bleed in my yard.”
Dominic believed her.
Ten minutes later, they sat in Grace Holloway’s kitchen around a wooden table scarred by years of use. Harper drank lemonade from a chipped blue glass. Mia sat beside her, wrapped in a quilt Grace had placed around her shoulders.
Dominic stood near the doorway, unable to sit.
Nathan remained outside under guard because Grace refused to let him breathe the same air as her walls.
Grace poured coffee for Sloan and ignored Dominic’s untouched cup.
“Elena came to me burned half to death,” Grace said finally.
Dominic’s hands curled into fists.
“She was alive after the crash.”
“Yes.”
“Who brought her?”
Grace looked at him.
“You did.”
The kitchen went silent.
Dominic stared.
“No.”
Grace’s eyes did not move.
“Not knowingly.”
Dominic’s memory flashed.
Smoke.
Metal.
Pain.
Elena screaming?
No. He had been told she died on impact.
He had been trapped in the passenger seat. Daniel pulled him out. Nathan arrived. Sirens. Fire. Darkness.
Grace leaned back.
“You were unconscious. But before they sedated you in the ambulance, you kept saying, ‘Save her first.’ A young paramedic heard you. He checked the rear slope below the road. Found Elena thrown clear before the car fully burned.”
Dominic could not breathe.
Sloan said, “Why wasn’t she taken to a hospital?”
Grace’s expression hardened.
“She was. For twenty-six minutes. Then men arrived asking questions before her name was even entered. The paramedic called me because his mother had stayed in one of my shelters years before. He knew what dirty power smelled like.”
Dominic gripped the back of a chair.
“Elena was brought here.”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
Grace looked down at her coffee.
“Four months.”
Dominic closed his eyes.
Four months.
Four months he had lain in his mansion, recovering, drowning in grief, while Elena breathed two hours away.
“Why didn’t she contact me?”
Grace’s eyes softened with pity.
“She tried.”
The words sliced him.
“What?”
Grace stood and took a small metal box from a locked pantry shelf. She placed it on the table and opened it.
Inside were letters.
Dozens.
All addressed to Dominic.
He reached for them, then stopped, as if touching them might set fire to what remained of him.
Grace said, “None went through. Every courier vanished. Every phone we used was traced. Elena believed your house was compromised.”
“It was.”
“Yes.”
Mia looked at the letters.
“She knew about me?”
Grace nodded.
“She woke from surgeries asking about three things. You. Mia. The ledger.”
Dominic finally sat.
The chair creaked beneath him.
Grace handed him the first letter.
His name was written in Elena’s hand.
Dom.
Not Dominic.
Dom.
He opened it.
The words blurred, but he forced himself to read.
I am alive. Do not trust Nathan. Do not trust the house. If this reaches you, leave before you come for me. They are watching through the walls. Sofia’s daughter is still inside. Find the bird.
Dominic looked up at Mia.
Find the bird.
Mia’s pendant.
Elena had known.
Grace watched him break quietly.
“Elena loved you,” she said. “But she feared what you would become if she pulled you into a war without proof.”
Dominic’s voice cracked.
“Where is she now?”
Grace did not answer.
The kitchen changed.
Mia sat straighter.
Sloan noticed too.
“Ms. Holloway,” Sloan said carefully. “Where is Elena Vale?”
Grace folded her hands.
“I do not know.”
Dominic stood so fast the chair fell backward.
Grace did not flinch.
“I said I do not know. Not that I never knew.”
Dominic’s voice was rough.
“Tell me.”
Grace looked toward the window.
“After four months, Elena got stronger. Strong enough to walk with a cane. Strong enough to read every file Sofia had hidden with us. Then someone betrayed this house.”
Nathan’s name filled the silence though no one said it.
Grace continued.
“Vittorio’s men came at night. Elena helped three women and six children escape through the orchard. She stayed behind to burn the records they wanted.”
Mia whispered, “Did they take her?”
“No.”
Grace’s eyes shone.
“She left before they breached the pantry door. But she did not leave alone.”
Dominic leaned forward.
“With who?”
Grace looked at Sloan.
“With a federal marshal named Peter Lang.”
Sloan went pale.
Dominic saw it immediately.
“You know him.”
Sloan’s voice changed.
“Peter Lang disappeared five years ago.”
Grace nodded.
“He was Elena’s handler after me.”
Sloan stood and walked away, dialing.
Dominic stared at Grace.
“Where did he take her?”
Grace hesitated.
Then Harper, who had been silent, spoke.
“Is Miss Elena a princess?”
Everyone turned.
Grace’s face softened.
“No, baby. Why?”
Harper pointed to a drawing pinned to the refrigerator.
It showed a woman with short dark hair, a cane, and a yellow scarf standing beside a little girl under an apple tree.
“That lady gave me candy once,” Harper said.
Mia froze.
Dominic turned slowly toward his sister.
“When?”
Harper shrugged.
“When Mommy was crying in the laundry room. The lady said birds know how to find windows.”
Mia covered her mouth.
Grace’s eyes closed.
Dominic looked at the drawing, then at Grace.
“Elena came back to the estate.”
Grace whispered, “Once.”
“When?”
Mia answered before Grace could.
“Last year.”
Dominic turned.
Mia’s voice shook.
“The day I found the trust papers. I thought a woman from the charity committee got lost near the laundry hall. She had a scarf over her hair. Burn marks on her hand.”
Dominic’s heart slammed.
“What did she say?”
Mia looked at him with tears in her eyes.
“She told me not to run south.”
Grace nodded slowly.
“She came back for Mia.”
Dominic could barely stand.
Elena had been inside his house.
A year ago.
Breathing the same air.
Walking the same halls.
And he had not seen her.
Sloan returned to the kitchen, face grim.
“Peter Lang is alive.”
Dominic turned.
Sloan continued.
“He used an emergency identity two days ago.”
“Where?”
Sloan looked at Grace, then Dominic.
“Chicago.”
Grace whispered, “Then she’s moving again.”
Dominic grabbed the letters.
Mia stood too.
Dominic looked at her.
“You don’t have to come.”
Mia lifted Harper into her arms.
“Elena tried to save me before I knew her name.”
May you like
Her voice steadied.
“I’m coming.”
