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Eyes on the wall, he breathed through his nose. “Things you’re better off not knowing. You have enough nightmares.”
ChapterFifty-Five
GRACE
The following Monday, a judge annulled my marriage to Rhys Vanderbilt. And Fitzgerald Archibald Adams IV died the following night of natural causes.
Rhys got nothing. But we still had to deal with him and his twisted family. They would get what was coming to them soon enough. Every penny that should have gone to Rhys would pass to Cole on our wedding day.
Three billion dollars.
The news anchor announced my grandfather’s death, saying the world would miss him because of his contributions.
I wanted to puke.
No one would miss him.
Bastian and Damian had confronted him a few days after I fled my wedding with Cole. And while I was in hiding, the old man told them the truth about their parents. He killed them, ruining their lives, all because he was mad and wanted more money.
So they drugged him.
Watched him die.
They couldn’t kill someone as rich and notorious as Fitzy without a major police investigation. So they did it smartly, and now the old man was gone.
I took the top off my coffee cup and threw it at my grandfather’s tomb. “Good fucking riddance.”
Bastian spit on the mausoleum, right over the top of ADAMS on the stone. “Rot in hell, you bastard.”
“You should look away, Grace,” Damian said before he whipped out his dick and pissed on the tomb. “Who’s a dirty, filthy animal now, you piece of shit?”
I remembered my grandfather calling Damian that when Bastian came to the house years ago. And Bastian defended his brother.
I walked away, laughing, and Alex stumbled into me, holding her baby bump. “Don’t mind Damian.” She giggled. “He’s been the hardest one to train.”
I laughed. “No, I get it. My grandfather treated him like shit, too.”
Alex smiled. “Come over to the house. I want to get to know you better. And I know Bash does, too. He talks about you all the time.”
* * *
Three months later, my grandfather’s attorney called me. So I drove with Cole to The Hamptons, where we stayed at Cole’s house on the beach. It was a short drive to my grandfather’s house in Sagaponack.
All of my grandfather’s heirs gathered in the ballroom at his house. At least a dozen people sat on elaborate wooden chairs facing the room’s front. A man, who I assumed was Mr. Bollinger, my grandfather’s attorney, stood in front of a podium.
On Cole’s arm, I entered the room a few minutes late. My cousin Bastian was already here. Alex sat between Damian and Bastian, with their newborn daughter on her lap. Sofia was beautiful and had black hair and big blue eyes. I knew without asking she was Damian’s little girl.
Bastian turned around as I found my seat a few rows behind him. I waved, a gesture my cousin returned before Mr. Bollinger tapped the microphone with his finger.
“Thank you all for coming,” Mr. Bollinger said. “Before I read the will, Fitzgerald wanted me to give each of his heirs a letter. But he requested you wait to open it until I call your name.”
He lifted a stack of envelopes from the podium and handed them out, calling names until everyone had an envelope—a note from my grandfather. The envelope felt like a lead weight in my hand.
We rarely spent time together when he was alive. I couldn’t imagine he had much to say. But I followed my grandfather’s wishes and waited for his lawyer to read the will. He rambled names of men I didn’t know who had inherited shares in my grandfather’s companies.
Cole clutched my trembling hand on his knee and gave it a good squeeze. As I waited for him to call my name, my stomach twisted in knots.
Mr. Bollinger cleared his throat, eyes wide as he glanced down at the paper. His cheeks flushed with heat. “To Carl Wellington, I leave my late wife’s vibrator so you can go fuck yourself.”
