Chapter 9 - Blood at the AltarThe first gunshot shattered the stained glass behind the altar.
Grace screamed and dropped to the floor.
Vincent moved before thought. He grabbed her by the waist and pulled her behind the marble altar as bullets cracked through the chapel. Mason returned fire from the aisle, shouting orders into his radio.
The small holy room became smoke, splintered wood, and echoes.
Grace pressed the photograph of Ruby beneath her coat and covered her head.
Vincent crouched beside her, his body between her and the gunfire.
It was absurd.
This man had built his life on violence.
Now he was shielding a maid with his own body.
“Stay down,” he ordered.
Grace glared at him despite shaking.
“I wasn’t planning to dance.”
A bullet struck the altar.
Stone dust sprayed across Vincent’s shoulder.
Mason shouted, “Three at the stairs!”
Vincent drew his gun and leaned out.
He fired twice.
A body fell hard on the steps.
Grace flinched.
Vincent saw and shifted to block her view.
Then Patrick’s voice floated through the smoke.
“Still dramatic, little brother.”
Vincent’s face went cold.
Patrick stepped into view at the top of the chapel stairs wearing a dark overcoat, leather gloves, and the same charming smile he had worn in family photographs. Older, yes. Lines around his eyes. A scar near his temple. But alive.
Terribly alive.
Beside him stood a red-haired woman with a scar on her chin.
Diana Vale.
Patrick’s wife.
She held Eleanor Shaw by the arm with a gun pressed to the old woman’s ribs.
Eleanor looked broken.
Vincent aimed.
Patrick smiled wider.
“Careful. Mrs. Shaw bruises easily now.”
Mason kept his weapon trained on Diana.
Grace stared at Patrick.
This was the man whose signature had never appeared on Ruby’s papers but whose money had paid for the poison.
Patrick’s eyes slid to her.
“Grace Miller,” he said warmly. “You look better than your file photo.”
Vincent’s gun shifted toward Patrick’s face.
“Do not look at her.”
Patrick laughed.
“There it is. That Callahan possessiveness. Father had it too. He called it love when he meant ownership.”
Vincent’s jaw tightened.
“You came for the box.”
“I came for what Caroline stole.”
“She stole nothing.”
“She stole proof. Proof belongs to the man smart enough to understand its value.”
Grace could not stop herself.
“They were children.”
Patrick looked at her with mild curiosity.
“Yes.”
The simplicity of his answer chilled her.
No denial. No shame. No explanation.
Just yes.
Grace rose slightly behind the altar despite Vincent’s warning hand.
“My daughter died screaming in a hospital bed because of you.”
Patrick tilted his head.
“I doubt that. Children usually grow quiet near the end.”
Vincent fired.
Patrick moved as if expecting it. The bullet struck stone where his head had been.
Diana shoved Eleanor forward and fired back. Mason pulled Vincent down. More bullets tore through the chapel.
Eleanor fell near the first pew, crying out.
Grace saw blood on the old woman’s sleeve.
Without thinking, she crawled toward her.
Vincent grabbed for her and missed.
“Grace!”
She ignored him.
Smoke burned her throat. Stone cut her palms. But she reached Eleanor and dragged her behind a pew as Mason covered them.
Eleanor clutched Grace’s arm.
“I’m sorry,” she sobbed. “I’m sorry.”
“Bleed later,” Grace snapped, tearing fabric from her apron to press against the wound.
Eleanor stared at her.
For one stunned second, even in the middle of gunfire, Vincent looked at Grace as if seeing another woman entirely.
Not maid.
Not widow.
Not victim.
A survivor.
Patrick retreated halfway up the stairs.
“Forty-eight hours, Vincent!” he shouted. “The ledger, or the twins finish what Caroline started!”
Vincent fired again.
Patrick disappeared into the dark.
Diana followed.
Mason’s men stormed the chapel moments later, but Patrick had already vanished through an upper service tunnel no one had used in years.
A tunnel Vincent had forgotten existed.
A tunnel Patrick clearly had not.
The mansion alarms screamed.
Vincent reached Grace and Eleanor.
“Are you hit?”
Grace shook her head.
“Eleanor is.”
Vincent looked at Eleanor.
The old woman wept harder.
“I thought I could fix it,” she whispered. “Patrick said he could reverse the damage if I helped bring Grace here.”
Vincent froze.
Grace looked up.
“What?”
Eleanor sobbed.
“He said Grace was the key. That Ruby’s trial records had something Caroline hid. He said if Grace came, he could find the cure for Noah and Lily.”
Vincent’s face twisted.
“You believed him?”
“I wanted to save them.”
“You let the man who killed Caroline near my children.”
Eleanor closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Grace pressed harder on the wound.
Vincent looked ready to condemn her forever.
Grace said, “Not here.”
His gaze snapped to her.
“Not while she’s bleeding. Not while the children are upstairs.”
For a moment, he looked furious.
Then he looked ashamed again.
“Get Dr. Harper,” he ordered.
Mason ran.
Vincent knelt beside Eleanor.
The old woman looked at him with the grief of someone who had loved a child and failed the man he became.
“I raised you,” she whispered. “But Caroline taught me what courage looked like. I was a coward.”
Vincent’s face hardened to hide the pain.
“Yes.”
Eleanor flinched.
Then he added, “But cowards do not come back from that by dying on chapel floors. You will live long enough to tell me everything.”
Grace watched Eleanor’s eyes fill with fresh tears.
That was as close to mercy as Vincent could manage.
For now.
Upstairs, Noah and Lily woke to the alarms.
By the time Vincent reached their bedroom, Lily was crying and Noah was trying not to.
Grace entered behind him, covered in dust and blood that was not hers.
Lily saw her and screamed.
“Miss Grace!”
Grace rushed to her.
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”
Noah looked at Vincent.
“Were there bad men?”
Vincent sat between their beds.
“Yes.”
Lily clutched Grace’s hand.
“Are they coming back?”
Vincent looked at Grace.
Then at his children.
For years, he had lied to them gently. Told them monsters were not real. Told them his work was boring. Told them their mother’s death was an accident because truth was too ugly for small hearts.
But lies had built this room’s prison.
So Vincent did something harder.
“Yes,” he said. “They might.”
Noah’s lip trembled.
“But I will not let them reach you,” Vincent said.
Grace added, “And neither will I.”
Lily looked between them.
“You promise?”
Vincent and Grace answered at the same time.
“I promise.”
Their eyes met over Lily’s bed.
In that moment, something unspoken passed between them.
Not romance.
Not trust.
Not yet.
A vow.
Patrick Callahan wanted a ledger.
He had awakened something far more dangerous.
May you like
A father with nothing left to lose.
And a mother whose dead child had finally been given a name.
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