Chapter 2 - THE RING FROM THE COFFIN
Nathan moved Lily and Grace out of the reception room first.
Victoria hated that.
He could see it.
She wanted the argument.
Wanted Grace exposed.
Wanted Nathan angry enough to react before thinking.
That alone made him wait.
Grace and Lily were taken to Nathan’s private sitting room upstairs.
Two women from the household brought food, clean towels, and ice for Grace’s bruised cheek.
Nathan stayed near the door.
He did not know how to stand beside a daughter he had learned existed twenty minutes earlier.
Lily solved the problem by walking over and taking his hand.
“Mommy says you don’t like carrots.”
Nathan looked down.
Grace almost smiled despite everything.
Nathan glanced at her.
“You told her that?”
“She asks questions.”
“About me?”
“Every night.”
That hurt.
Nathan looked at Lily again.
“Your mother is right.”
Lily smiled.
The ease of it was dangerous.
Nathan felt something opening inside him that he had spent years keeping closed.
He forced his attention back to Grace.
“Where did the ring come from?”
“I don’t know.”
“Was it in her cardigan when you arrived?”
“No.”
“You’re sure?”
“I dressed her myself.”
“Who touched her?”
Grace thought.
“Victoria.”
“Anyone else?”
“Estate staff.”
“Who?”
“Two servers at the entrance. One woman took Lily’s coat.”
Nathan nodded.
He would deal with that separately.
“Now tell me why you disappeared.”
Grace looked toward Lily.
Nathan understood.
He called one of the older housekeepers, Evelyn Shaw, a woman Grace had known years earlier.
Lily went willingly with her to the adjoining room.
Nathan waited until the door closed.
Then Grace looked at him.
“I didn’t leave because I wanted to.”
“You vanished.”
“I was taken.”
Nathan’s expression did not move.
“By who?”
“Cole men.”
His voice dropped.
“Names.”
“I only knew one.”
“Who?”
“Marcus Reed.”
Nathan stopped.
Marcus Reed had been Nathan’s father’s personal enforcer.
Dead now.
Killed two years earlier in a dock ambush.
Grace continued.
“The night after the wine-cellar killing, Marcus came to my room with two men.”
“What did he say?”
“That Thomas Miller’s daughter had become a liability.”
“Because of the dead courier?”
Grace shook her head.
“Because I knew the courier wasn’t killed by an enemy.”
Nathan stared.
“Who killed him?”
“Julian.”
Silence.
Nathan’s younger brother had supposedly been dead for nearly nine years by then.
“No.”
Grace expected that.
“I saw him.”
“When?”
“The night before I disappeared.”
Nathan laughed once.
Darkly.
“You saw my dead brother.”
“Yes.”
“In my estate.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you come to me?”
“I tried.”
“What happened?”
“Marcus intercepted me.”
Nathan stepped closer.
“You expect me to believe that my father’s old enforcer hid my living brother from me?”
“I expect you to decide after you hear everything.”
That sentence sounded too much like a challenge.
Nathan liked it.
Hated it.
Grace continued.
“My father knew Julian survived.”
“Thomas?”
“Yes.”
“For how long?”
“Years.”
Nathan’s jaw tightened.
“Everyone around me knew my family better than I did.”
Grace looked away.
“That was the point.”
“What point?”
“The Cole family survived by keeping brothers suspicious of brothers.”
Nathan stared.
Grace lowered her voice.
“Your father built it that way.”
Arthur Cole.
Nathan’s father.
Dead six years.
Feared by almost everyone who had known him.
Loved by Nathan in the complicated way sons love men who teach them strength and fear at the same time.
“Careful.”
Grace met his eyes.
“I spent three years being careful.”
Silence.
Nathan glanced at Julian’s ring.
“You said Julian killed the courier.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“The courier recognized him.”
“Then why show himself at all?”
“He wasn’t supposed to.”
“What was he doing?”
“Meeting my father.”
Nathan’s eyes narrowed.
“Thomas Miller met Julian?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Because Thomas had found out who ordered Julian killed twelve years ago.”
Nathan’s entire body went still.
“My brother died in a car bombing.”
“No.”
“He was in the car.”
“No.”
“We buried him.”
“You buried what was left after someone wanted you convinced.”
Nathan walked away.
The room felt too small.
He turned back.
“Who ordered it?”
Grace looked toward the closed door.
“Your father.”
Nathan stared.
“No.”
“Arthur Cole believed Julian was going to expose something.”
“What?”
Grace hesitated.
Nathan saw it.
“Say it.”
“A second family inside the family.”
Nathan frowned.
Grace continued.
“Not blood.”
“Then what?”
“A circle of men Arthur trusted more than relatives.”
“What did they do?”
“They decided who could rise, who could disappear, who could marry, who could inherit.”
Nathan thought of Victoria.
His engagement.
Grace’s words.
“Who ran it?”
“I don’t know.”
“You know enough.”
“My father called them the Black Table.”
Nathan had heard the phrase once as a child.
His father and Marcus Reed arguing behind a closed door.
Black Table meets only when blood fails.
At the time, Nathan thought it was a business phrase.
Now Grace said:
“Thomas discovered someone had restarted it after your father died.”
Nathan looked at Julian’s ring.
“And Julian?”
“He came back because the Black Table was preparing to choose your successor.”
“I don’t have a successor.”
May you like
Grace looked toward Lily’s room.
“You do now.”
