The glow of the Facetime call had barely faded when Grace stared at her reflection in the darkened screen. For a moment, she didn't look like herself. Not the heiress. Not the friend. Not even the woman Silas had taken out on a date that felt too close to a fairy tale with fangs.
She closed the laptop, her fingers trembling slightly. Somewhere deep within her, the threads she thought she'd wound tight began to unravel. She pulled the shawl closer around her shoulders, even though the room wasn't cold.
Across the city, in a private hotel suite booked under a name that wasn't his, Julian paced. His jaw was locked, knuckles red from punching the marble bathroom wall. He watched Grace's latest campaign unfold on the big screen, her face glowing under filters and flash. But all he saw was betrayal.
"She was supposed to choose me," he muttered to himself, pacing like a caged thing. The soft jazz music playing from the corner speaker felt like mockery.
He picked up his burner phone, dialed a number, and waited. When a gruff voice answered, Julian simply said, "Do it. I want everything you find. Friends, family, habits. Especially that bastard Vale."
His rage was curdled with obsession. Grace had been a symbol of everything he deserved, polished, powerful, untouchable. And now, touched by another.
Meanwhile, Grace received a gift.
It arrived wrapped in matte black paper with a single blood-red ribbon. Inside? A vintage perfume bottle from the 1960s. Empty.
No note. No label. Just the haunting scent of memory clinging to the glass. Not a message from a stranger. A whisper from the past.
Grace stared at the bottle for a long time. It looked almost identical to one her mother used to keep on her vanity. But it was impossible. Her mother never gave that bottle away.
She didn't tell Eva. She didn't tell Lara. She simply placed it on her dresser and stared at it like it was a message in a language only she could understand. The kind of message that didn't need ink.
At a rooftop gala later that week, Grace showed up alone, dressed in a sleek black satin gown with a high slit, elegance woven into every step.
Silas was already there.
He greeted her with that signature half-smile. Not too much. Not too little. Just enough to unnerve.
"You look beautiful," he said, adjusting her shawl as if it was second nature.
"You always say that."
"Because it's always true."
She tilted her head. "You're better at pretending now."
He laughed. "Who says I'm pretending?"
Their conversation was light, laced with charm, but Grace's expression had moments, fleeting cracks, where the calculated calm slipped. Silas noticed. But he didn't prod. He savored.
Tristian, catching their exchange from a distance, narrowed his eyes. Something about their energy was electric, but wrong. He pulled Eva aside.
"You said Silas is seeing Grace now?"
"Not seeing. Orbiting. Like a black hole with manners."
Tristian nodded slowly. "Has she told you anything... strange?"
Eva raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"
He didn't answer. Not directly. But when Grace turned to them, her smile didn't quite reach her eyes.
For a second, Tristian swore she looked through them.
Meanwhile, Julian's men had started following Silas.
One of them, stationed outside the gala in an unmarked car, clicked photos through a tinted lens. Another hacked into Silas' schedule, tracking his movements with cold precision.
Julian didn't just want revenge now. He wanted control back.
And he didn't care who he had to destroy to get it.
Back at the penthouse, Grace stood in front of the mirror, the perfume bottle in hand.
She dabbed a little of the lingering scent onto her wrist. The memory was sharp, vivid. Her mother's voice. A childhood bedroom. A broken music box.
Everything was unraveling.
And Grace, she smiled.
Not sweetly. Not softly. But with the kind of smile that meant she was five steps ahead of everyone else.