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“You won’t make it ten steps on that knee, Nathaniel.” I watched him sway, blood soaking his designer pants where Leo’s bullet had shattered his kneecap.
His laugh was more of a snarl. “I don’t have to.” He pressed a button on his phone. “You see, Victoria, while you were all so focused on me, my men have already started their work at the
cemetery.”
Sofia’s phone buzzed. “Boss, multiple vehicles at Mountain View Cemetery. They’re… they’re digging up Catherine Lane’s plot.”
My blood ran cold. Through the study’s windows, I could see the cemetery on the hill above the city, floodlights blazing against the night sky.
“You really think I didn’t plan for this?” Nathaniel’s smile was vicious despite his pallor. “Jessica’s there now, directing everything. And she has very specific instructions about what to do if I don’t call within the next ten minutes.”
“What instructions?” Leo demanded.
“Let’s just say, the demolition charges they’re placing around your mother’s grave will do more than disturb her rest.” He shifted, grimacing in pain. “They’ll destroy everything buried with her. Including that evidence you’re all so desperate to find.”
“You’re bluffing.” But my voice shook.
“Am I?” He held up his phone, showing a live video feed. Jessica stood among construction
equipment, directing men who were placing dark objects around my mother’s headstone. “Ten
minutes, Victoria. Either I make that call, or they detonate everything.”
Leo’s men moved forward, but Nathaniel raised his gun again. “Don’t. One wrong move and I drop this phone. Dead man’s switch very simple, very effective.”
–
“What do you want?” I asked, though I already knew.
“You. At the cemetery. Alone.” His eyes glittered with fever and triumph. “Time to finish what
we started, darling. Just you and me, watching another grave close over all those inconvenient
truths.”
“Victoria, no.” Leo’s voice was tight with tension.
“Nine minutes now.” Nathaniel’s hand trembled on the gun. “Tick tock.”
I looked at Leo, seeing the war in his eyes. We both knew what Nathaniel was capable of – he’d already destroyed so many lives, desecrated so many things I held sacred.
“I’ll go.” The words came steady, certain.
“Alone,” Nathaniel insisted. “Or Jessica pushes that button early.”
“Fine.” I stepped toward him. “But first, tell me something. Did you ever love me at all? Or was I just another acquisition?”
He laughed, the sound wet and strange. “Oh, Victoria. Always so desperate to believe in love. Just like your mother.”
21 Fe
Marry My Ex–husband Rival
The comparison sparkea something in me –
not rage, but clarity. In that moment, I saw him completely. Not the monster who’d haunted my nightmares, but a small, broken man desperately clinging to control.
“You’re right,” I said softly. “I am like my mother. And that’s why you’ve already lost.”
Before he could react, I moved. All those hours training with Sofia paid off as I struck –
not at the gun, but at his shattered knee. He screamed, the phone flying from his grip as he
collapsed.
Leo’s men swarmed forward, but I was already catching the phone. On the screen, Jessica
was staring at her own device, waiting for Nathaniel’s call.
“Well played,” Nathaniel gasped through the pain. “But you’re too late. Even if you drive there now, you’ll never make it before she gets impatient.”
I smiled, my mother’s strength flowing through me. “That’s the thing about graves,
Nathaniel. They hold more than just bodies. They hold secrets.” I looked at Leo. “And my father knew exactly how to use that.”
Understanding dawned in Leo’s eyes. “The real evidence was never in the grave.”
“No.” I turned back to Nathaniel, watching his face as realization hit. “But what is in there?
That’s going to be interesting to find out.”
“Move,” Leo ordered his men. “Full tactical response at the cemetery. Now.”
As they dragged Nathaniel away, I caught his arm. “One last thing. Remember when you said I was predictable? Just like my mother?”
His eyes narrowed.
“You forgot the most important thing about Catherine Lane.” I leaned close, whispering so only he could hear. “She taught me how to play the long game.”
His face went pale as the implications hit him. Whatever Jessica was about to uncover in
that
grave, it wasn’t what any of them expected.
“Victoria.” Leo held out his hand. “It’s time.”
his grip. Together, we headed for the cars, ready to face.
I took it, feeling the strength of whatever waited at my mother’s grave.
Behind us, Nathaniel’s laughter echoed through the house high, desperate, and tinged with something that might have been fear.
The final game was about to begin.
The cemetery gates loomed before us as our convoy of black SUVs swept up the winding road. Through the bulletproof glass, I could see the floodlights blazing around my mother’s plot, casting long shadows across the marble headstones.
“Eight men with Jessica,” Sofia reported from the front seat, studying the thermal imaging on her tablet. “They’ve wired the entire area with explosives.”
O O
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Marry My Ex husband’s inval
“Can your team disarm them?” Leo asked, his hand tight around mine.
“Not without being seen. One wrong move and-”
“They’ll detonate everything,” I finished. The weight of my father’s real secret pressed. against me, hidden where none of them would think to look. “We need to get closer.”
Leo’s tactical team spread out through the cemetery as we approached, moving like shadows between the graves. Through my earpiece, I could hear them coordinating positions, surrounding the site.
“Victoria!” Jessica’s voice rang out across the consecrated ground. “I know you’re here! Come out where I can see you!”
I stepped into the floodlights‘ glare, feeling Leo’s tension as he moved to follow. “Stay back,”
I whispered. “Trust me.”
Jessica stood at the edge of my mother’s desecrated grave, her designer dress stained with dirt, a detonator clutched in her manicured hands. The construction equipment had torn up the
peaceful plot, leaving an ugly wound in the earth.
“Where’s Nathaniel?” she demanded.
“In custody.” I took another step forward. “It’s over, Jessica. The evidence is already out
there.”
“Liar!” Her laugh held an edge of hysteria. “Nothing’s been released. We’ve been monitoring
every channel, every network.”
“Have you checked your father’s private server?” I watched her face pale. “The one he used to document everything?”
Her finger tightened on the detonator. “You’re bluffing.”
“Am I? Check your phone. The uploads should be starting right about… now.”
As if on cue, her phone buzzed. I watched as she read the incoming notifications, her composure cracking with each headline.
“No,” she whispered. “Daddy wouldn’t…”
“He did. Before you could silence him in the hospital.” My voice carried across the grave
between us. “He told us everything, Jessica. About the forged prescriptions, about helping Nathaniel poison my mother, about all of it.”
“Then what’s in here?” She gestured at the grave. “What was so important that your father
had to hide it with her?”
I smiled, feeling my mother’s strength flowing through me. “Why don’t you find out?” She nodded to her men, who resumed digging. The sound of shovels striking earth echoed through the night, a rhythmic counterpoint to my heartbeat.
“Boss,” Sofia’s voice whispered in my earpiece. “Team in position. Awaiting your signal.”
I watched as they reached my mother’s casket, their tools scraping against the lid. This was
the mamant kathanial had fasrad the truth hold tried en dacnaratalu to kepan huriad
O O O O
