Megan screamed her name—not in pain.
In warning.
Grace reached the storage room and slammed the door. The lock was old, stiff, barely more than a suggestion of safety. She turned it anyway, then stumbled backward between towers of donated diapers and winter coats.
Her hands shook as she searched the walls.
No window.
No second door.
No miracle.
Then she saw the wall phone half-hidden behind stacked boxes of formula.
She lunged for it, knocking her hip against a shelf. Pain flared down her side, and she pressed one hand to her belly.
“Stay with me,” she whispered to Lily. “Stay with me, sweetheart.”
Her fingers fumbled over the buttons.
She dialed Sebastian’s number from memory.
He answered on the first ring.
“Grace?”
Just her name. One syllable. Alert already.
She lowered her voice, though panic wanted to tear it open. “St. Agnes. Basement. Malcolm’s men.”
The silence that followed lasted less than a second.
Grace felt the whole city shift inside it.
“Lock yourself in,” Sebastian said. “Get low. I’m coming.”
The door shuddered as someone kicked it.
Grace flinched and crouched behind a metal cabinet, one arm wrapped around her stomach. “Sebastian—”
“I’m here.”
“No, listen to me. If something happens—”
“Nothing happens,” he cut in.
His voice had changed.
Not cold. Not commanding. Not the voice that once made hardened men obey him.
Terrified.
“Listen to me, Grace. You and Lily breathe. That is your only job. You breathe until I get there.”
The door shuddered again. Wood splintered near the lock.
“Sebastian,” she whispered, and this time her voice broke.
“I’m coming,” he said. “I swear to God, I’m coming.”
The line went dead.
The third kick cracked the door.
Grace looked around wildly. There were blankets. Diapers. Cans of formula. A plastic nativity set missing two wise men. A heavy industrial flashlight rested on a shelf beside a toolbox.
She grabbed it with both hands.
The door split inward with a groan. A shoulder forced through the broken gap. A man cursed, reaching for the lock.
Grace did not think.
She swung with every ounce of fear in her body.
The flashlight connected with his temple with a sickening crack. The man shouted and stumbled sideways, grabbing his head.
Grace ran.
She squeezed through the gap, scraping her arm on broken wood, and burst into the hallway. Her breath came in sharp, burning pulls. She made it six steps before another man caught her arm.
His grip bit deep enough that she gasped.
“Careful,” a familiar voice said from near the stairs. “If you hurt the baby, you ruin the leverage.”
Grace turned.
Malcolm Rourke stood at the foot of the stairs as if he had arrived for a charity luncheon and found the service disappointing.
He was older than Sebastian by twenty years, silver-haired and handsome in the polished, bloodless way of wealthy men who had never scrubbed a floor, carried groceries on a bus, or apologized without calculation. Grace had seen him once before, across a hotel lobby, smiling beside Sebastian with one hand on his shoulder like a proud uncle.
That smile was gone now.
There was no warmth in his face.
Only ownership.
“Hello, Grace,” Malcolm said. “You have caused an extraordinary amount of inconvenience.”
The man holding her tightened his fingers around her arm.
Grace refused to cry out.
“If you want Sebastian,” she said, breathing through the pain, “call him yourself. Dragging a pregnant woman out of a church basement seems inefficient.”
Malcolm chuckled. “I see why he liked you.”
Grace lifted her chin.
“Unfortunately,” Malcolm continued, “he did more than like you.”
Fear moved coldly through her, but anger was faster.
“You falsified his medical records.”
“I protected an empire from sentiment.”
“You mean you protected your seat.”
The amusement drained from his face.
There it was, Grace thought. The wound beneath the silk.
“Sebastian was built to rule,” Malcolm said. “He had discipline. Instinct. Loyalty. Then he met a nurse who convinced him goodness was more valuable than obedience.” His mouth twisted around the word goodness as if it tasted rotten. “Now he is speaking with federal attorneys, liquidating profitable channels, cutting loose men who have served this family for decades, and boring me with phrases like legitimacy.”
Grace stared at him.
Sebastian had told her he was leaving the life. She had known there were deals being unwound, properties sold, accounts frozen or transferred into lawful channels. She had known he was trying to rebuild the Rourke name into something their daughter would not have to whisper.
But federal attorneys?
Evidence?
Testimony?
In Malcolm’s world, that was not reform.
That was treason.
“No wonder you’re desperate,” Grace said softly.
Malcolm’s eyes sharpened.
“You’re not here to scare me,” she continued, the truth revealing itself as she spoke. “You’re here because you already lost him.”
For the first time, Malcolm’s expression flickered.
Then he stepped closer.
“I am here,” he said, each word neat and venomous, “because a child can be handled many ways before it becomes an heir.”