Chapter 3 - The Ghost in the Playroom
Within a week, Grace had established a routine inside the gilded fortress. While Dante spent fourteen hours a day in his study orchestrating a shadow war against the Falcone family, Grace became the center of Ethan’s universe.
She discovered that the boy’s mother had passed away two years prior in an illness that Dante’s millions couldn't cure. Since then, Ethan had been surrounded by cold security guards, rotating nannies who were terrified of his father, and an endless array of expensive toys that couldn't replace human warmth.
"Look, Grace! I made a school!" Ethan shouted, showing her a massive structure built out of wooden blocks in the third-floor playroom.
"It's beautiful, Ethan," Grace smiled, sitting cross-legged on the plush carpet. She had finally traded her uniform for a simple gray sweater and jeans provided by the estate staff. "Who teaches at this school?"
"You do," Ethan said simply, his small face serious. "Because you're the only one who doesn't look at the doors when you're talking to me. Everyone else is always looking for the monsters."
Grace’s heart squeezed. She reached out, gently smoothing his dark hair. "I'm not looking for monsters, honey. I'm looking right at you."
Suddenly, the playroom door burst open. Marco, Dante’s right-hand man, stepped in, his hand resting on his holster. His face was pale. "Miss Miller, you need to take the boy to the safe room immediately. The outer perimeter sensors have been breached."
Grace didn't ask questions. She scooped Ethan up in her arms, his small body clinging to her like a burr, and ran down the hidden service corridor Marco indicated. Her heart hammered against her ribs, a terrifying echo of the morning at the diner.
As she entered the reinforced steel safe room behind a bookshelf in Dante's study, she saw Dante himself, loading a heavy black pistol with fluid, lethal movements.
"They're inside the courtyard," Dante said, his voice a freezing whisper as he looked at Grace. He stepped closer, his hand touching her face for a brief, electric second. "Stay behind the steel door, Grace. If anyone opens it who isn't me... you know what to do."
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"Don't die, Dante," Grace found herself saying, her fingers tightening around his lapel.
He looked at her, a spark of something warm and primitive igniting in his ice-blue eyes. "I have a family to protect now, Grace. I don't intend to die."
