Chapter 193

Chapter 193:

“Tomorrow. The memorial service,” Grayson said. “You will be on your best behavior. You will hold my arm. You will sit next to me. And you will smile. If Beatrice catches even a whiff of discord, the deal is off — and I will crush your mother’s company into dust.”

Isolde gripped the phone so hard her knuckles turned white. He was blackmailing her with her own grief.

“I understand,” she said.

“Good girl,” Grayson said. “See you at the church.”

𝗝𝘰і𝗇 t𝗵ou𝘴𝗮𝘯𝗱𝘀 оf 𝗳𝘢𝗻𝘴 𝗈ո 𝘨𝖺l𝗇o𝗏e𝗅𝗌.𝗰𝘰𝗆

He hung up. On the screen, he pocketed his phone, adjusted his suit jacket, and walked back to Belle. He put his arm around her waist and smiled for the cameras.

Isolde lowered her phone. She felt physically ill.

“Good girl,” she whispered to the empty street.

She hailed a cab. As she sat in the back watching the city slide past, she made herself a promise. This was the last time. The last time she would beg. The last time she would trade her pride for survival.

She opened her phone and typed a message to Arland.

He took the bait. Funds are released. But I need to accelerate the plan. I need the B-side evidence. Now.

The morning of the memorial was overcast. The sky was a sheet of unbleached cotton, threatening rain but never delivering.

Isolde stood at the entrance of the old stone church in Queens — the place where her grandmother had been baptized, married, and where she would now be eulogized.

She wore a simple, high-necked black dress. Her right arm, confined in its cast, rested in a black silk sling that blended with the fabric. Her left hand, wrapped in fresh white bandages, was held carefully at her side. She greeted the arriving guests with a solemn nod in place of a handshake — a gesture most attributed to grief rather than the searing pain of the burn beneath the gauze. Cousins she hadn’t seen in years. Old neighbors. Business partners of her late grandfather.

“So sorry for your loss,” they murmured. And then, inevitably: “Where is your husband?”

“He’s on his way,” Isolde repeated for what felt like the fiftieth time. Her jaw ached from holding the same brittle smile.

Ellyn stood beside her, weeping into a handkerchief, grief having stripped her of her usual frantic energy. Uncle Saul rolled up in his wheelchair, a portable oxygen tank at his side, his face gaunt but his eyes still sharp.

“He’s not here,” Saul rasped. It wasn’t a question.

“He’s coming,” Isolde said, adjusting the blanket across Saul’s lap.

“He should be here now,” Saul grumbled. “Disrespectful. If I had my legs —”

A sleek black Rolls Royce pulled up to the curb.

Isolde straightened. Finally.

But when the driver opened the door, it wasn’t Grayson.

It was Beatrice.

The matriarch stepped out, leaning heavily on a cane. She wore a black hat with a veil that did nothing to conceal the disapproval in her eyes. She walked straight to Isolde — no hug, no condolences.

“Where is he?” Beatrice demanded.

Isolde felt a spike of panic. “He had a last-minute issue at the office. He’s driving himself.”

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