Chapter 3 - The Visitor in the Dark
"Who's there?" my voice rasped, sounding far smaller and more frightened than I intended in the cavernous space of the gallery.
No one answered. The only sound was the steady, heavy drumming of the rain against the tall windows and the erratic beating of my own heart.
I inched backward, pressing my spine against the open cavity of the wall art installation, my fingers searching blindly for a weapon—anything to defend myself if the unseen presence stepped out of the shadows.
Then, a low, gravelly voice cut through the dark.
"You shouldn't be poking around in my wife's memories, Miss Carter."
The beam of a high-intensity tactical flashlight snapped on, nearly blinding me with its brilliance. As my eyes adjusted to the glare, the tall, imposing silhouette of Nathaniel Grayson emerged from the gloom.
He wasn't wearing his usual tailored executive suit. He wore a simple charcoal shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, exposing forearms corded with muscle and faint, jagged scars that hinted at a past far more violent than the corporate boardrooms of Chicago. His dark hair was slightly tousled, his jaw shadowed with stubble, and his amber-flecked eyes—eyes that looked hauntingly like the triplets'—were fixed on me with a dangerous, calculating intensity.
"Mr. Grayson," I managed, lowering the flashlight slightly so I wasn't blinding him in return. "Your house is leaking secrets. You might want to lock your doors better."
Nathaniel didn't flinch. He didn't yell, threaten to fire me, or demand I hand over the notebook clutched in my hands. Instead, he walked slowly toward me, his boots clicking rhythmically against the floor, stopping just three feet away. The scent of rain, cedar, and expensive scotch washed over me.
"That hiding place was built in 1924 by my grandfather during the prohibition era," Nathaniel said quietly, his gaze dropping to the open notebook in my hands. "I thought I was the only one who knew the release mechanism."
"Amelia knew it too," I replied, my voice steadying as righteous anger began to override my fear. "She left more than memories behind, Mr. Grayson. She left a paper trail. Someone in this house isn't just trying to drive me away—they're trying to steal everything your children are supposed to inherit."
Nathaniel’s jaw tightened. A muscle jumped in his cheek. He reached out, his long fingers gently prying the notebook from my grip with surprising tenderness, as if handling fragile glass. He flipped through a few pages, his expression darkening with every second until his face looked like carved granite.
"I knew," he whispered, the admission tearing from his throat like broken glass. "I knew something was wrong with the way the nannies left. I thought... God help me, I thought they were just weak. I thought my money could insulate my children from the ugliness of the world."
"Money doesn't insulate anyone, Mr. Grayson," I snapped, stepping closer, refusing to shrink back from his imposing height. "Money just makes the wolves wear better suits. Your children aren't brats. They're terrified. They've been gaslit, manipulated, and scared half to death by someone inside this very family who wants them isolated so completely that no one will notice when the accounts are emptied."
Nathaniel looked down at me, his amber eyes searching my face with a raw, agonizing vulnerability that he hid from the rest of the world. For a moment, the fearsome billionaire, the ruthless titan of industry, vanished, leaving behind only a grieving, broken father who had realized too late that he was sleeping in the same bed as the enemy.
"Who?" he asked, his voice dropping to a lethal whisper. "Who did this?"
"Check the security logs for the east wing between 2:00 and 2:15 AM," I said, pointing toward the hidden monitor inside the wall. "Someone exported the raw footage of my arrival and sent it to the press. And I guarantee you, they didn't use an external router. They're using the house's internal intranet."
May you like
Before Nathaniel could reply, a sharp, blood-curdling scream echoed from the upper floor.
Maya.
