Chapter 109:


    “Get out!” Isolde screamed. The pain in her arm red, white-hot. “Go ask Grayson for money. Tell him you sold your daughter for a credit line. Maybe he’ll give you a discount.”


    Ellyn stared at her, grabbed her bag, and fled. The door mmed shut, vibrating the walls.


    Isolde stood trembling in the silence. Her father was a ghost who had abandoned them, and her mother was a parasite.


    “Mommy?” Effie tugged gently at her shirt. “Are you crying?”


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    Isolde wiped her face. “No, baby. I’m done crying.”


    The afternoon sun was cutting long, amber nts across the floor when the inte buzzed again.


    Isolde didn’t want to answer. The buzzing was persistent. Aggressive.


    She walked to the screen.


    Grayson stood in the lobby in a charcoal suit, looking every inch the master of the universe. Beside him, slouching against the marble wall, Kaiden held a Nintendo Switch and ignored his father entirely.


    Isolde pressed the talk button. “Go away.”


    “Open the door, Isolde.” Grayson’s voice crackled through the speaker — not tired, but coldlymanding. “We’re not leaving until we talk.”


    “Talk to mywyer.”


    “I brought Kaiden.” Grayson grabbed the boy’s shoulder and shoved him toward the camera. “We’re going to my father’s g as a family. This charade ends now. You wille home. We will present a united front.”


    Kaiden looked up, his face twisted in a scowl. “I don’t want to! Belle said I don’t have to!”


    “Shut up, Kaiden,” Grayson hissed, then looked back at the lens. “This is your final offer, Isolde. Stop this foolishness. I need to see Effie. I need to know what the doctors said about her trauma.”


    “Her trauma?” A surge of rage moved through Isolde so potent it made her dizzy. “You didn’t care about her trauma when you were worried about your suit. You didn’t care about my arm when you stepped over me.”


    “I didn’t see you!” Grayson shouted. The veneer of calm was cracking. “I was panicking! Belle was screaming! Stop rewriting history to make yourself the victim!”


    “The video doesn’t lie, Grayson. The whole world saw you run.”


    “That video is out of context!” He mmed his hand against the wall beside the camera. “Open this door! I am your husband! I have a right to see my daughter!”


    “You have no rights,” Isolde said. “You forfeited them when you handed a six-year-old a weapon.”


    Kaiden suddenly leaned into the camera and stuck out his tongue. “You’re ugly! And your arm looks stupid! I hope it falls off!”


    Grayson didn’t correct him. He didn’t pull him back. He simply looked at Isolde, his eyes cold and calcting.


    “You think you’re safe in there?” Grayson said. “You think And Roth can protect you? I will buy this building and evict you. I will burn your mother’spany to ash. Open. The. Door.”


    Isolde looked at the man she had loved for five years. She searched for some trace of the man who had once bought her flowers, who had once held her hand.


    He was gone. Or perhaps he had never existed.


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