Chapter 2 - The Name Nobody Mentioned
Grace had been nine years old when her father died.
Her mother told everyone it had been a highway accident.
Rain.
A sharp curve.
A guardrail.
Nothing mysterious.
Nothing worth questioning.
Yet Eleanor Blackwood was now staring at Grace as though Thomas Miller had walked back into the palace himself.
Adrian noticed.
“You knew her father?”
Eleanor tightened her fingers around the armrest.
“He worked here.”
Grace frowned.
“My father was an electrician.”
“He was many things.”
Vanessa suddenly stepped forward.
“This is ridiculous.”
Adrian looked at her.
Vanessa stopped immediately.
“This woman assaulted me.”
Grace stared at her.
“I stopped you from hitting someone in a wheelchair.”
“You grabbed me.”
“Because your hand was raised.”
Vanessa looked toward the guests.
“They’re filming this.”
Adrian’s eyes swept across the corridor.
“Then I suggest you choose your next words carefully.”
Vanessa lowered her voice.
“You don’t understand what she did.”
“I understand exactly what I saw.”
Vanessa pointed toward Eleanor.
“She was sitting in a restricted donor entrance dressed like—”
She stopped.
Too late.
Eleanor smiled faintly.
“Dressed like what?”
Vanessa’s face went pale.
Adrian waited.
Vanessa looked away.
Grace had seen wealthy people apologize before.
Usually the apology arrived only after consequences became visible.
“I misunderstood.”
Adrian said nothing.
“I didn’t recognize your mother.”
Eleanor’s expression hardened.
“That’s the problem.”
Vanessa blinked.
“You would have behaved differently if you recognized me.”
Silence settled over the corridor.
Eleanor continued.
“But you believed I was nobody.”
Vanessa looked toward Adrian.
“Can we discuss this privately?”
“No.”
The answer came instantly.
Vanessa stared at him.
Adrian nodded toward the ballroom doors.
“You’re leaving.”
“My family donated two million dollars tonight.”
“I’ll return it.”
“You can’t be serious.”
“Try me.”
Vanessa’s jaw tightened.
Her eyes flashed toward Grace.
“This is because of her.”
“No.”
Adrian stepped between them.
“This is because of you.”
The security guards approached.
Vanessa whispered something Grace could barely hear.
“You’ll regret humiliating me.”
Then she walked away.
But before disappearing around the corner, Vanessa looked back at Grace.
That look carried a promise.
Grace knew people like Vanessa.
They rarely accepted defeat.
They simply moved the battlefield.
Adrian turned to Grace.
“You can return to work.”
Eleanor interrupted.
“No.”
Grace looked at her.
Eleanor reached into a small handbag hanging from the wheelchair.
She pulled out an old black-and-white photograph.
The edges were worn.
She held it toward Grace.
Three people stood outside the Grand Aurelia Palace nearly twenty years earlier.
A younger Eleanor.
A man Grace immediately recognized as her father.
And a third man whose face had been scratched out with black ink.
Grace stared at the image.
“Where did you get this?”
“Your father gave it to me.”
“When?”
“The night before he died.”
Grace’s throat tightened.
Eleanor turned the photograph over.
There were four words written on the back.
IF ANYTHING HAPPENS, WAIT.
Grace stared at her.
“Wait for what?”
Eleanor’s eyes filled with something deeper than grief.
“Not what.”
She looked at Grace.
“For whom.”
Adrian frowned.
“Mother.”
Eleanor ignored him.
“Your father told me one day someone from his family would come back through these doors.”
Grace shook her head.
“That doesn’t make sense.”
“It will.”
“When?”
“When you see what he left beneath this palace.”
Grace stepped backward.
“My father never told us anything about this place.”
“He was trying to protect you.”
“From who?”
Eleanor’s eyes moved toward the ballroom.
Hundreds of wealthy guests laughed beneath chandeliers.
Politicians.
Executives.
Judges.
Investors.
May you like
Eleanor whispered.
“From someone who is still here tonight.”
