Regret Came Too Late

Grace stayed at the hospital well into the evening. She hadn't slept much lately and eventually dozed off, slumped over the edge of Liam's bed.

Three hours later, a doctor gently woke her up.

"Ms. Lambert, you should go home and get some rest. Liam's still unconscious- you'll collapse before he even wakes up."

Her eyes were ringed with dark circles. She rubbed them and asked, "His fever still isn't going down?"

The doctor sighed. "It all depends on him now. He seems stuck on something mentally. As his family, maybe try talking to him—see if it helps."

But Grace didn't even know what Liam's hang-up was.

She got up and went home, where she collapsed into bed from sheer exhaustion.

A noise outside her window startled her awake in the middle of the night.

She flicked on the lamp beside her and froze. Outside her window, a strange man was crouched, holding a tool and clearly about to smash the glass.

It was a terrifying sight-if her nerves weren't steel by now, she probably would've screamed.

The man clearly hadn't expected the lights to come on. He panicked and swung the tool, but Grace moved faster. She grabbed a chair and slammed it against the window.

up by hand. The force of the

jolted the nearby patrol to attention. Within minutes, police

man had died

swarm the scene. Her adrenaline was finally fading,

her apartment, and one of them

it's

a few run-ins with the cops

officers surveyed the shattered glass and exchanged a look. One of them pinched

for a statement. We'll verify the guy's

grabbed a coat and followed them to

run the guy's ID—he was

that point, it was pretty clear she hadn't

bank activity? I want to know who paid him to come after

his financial

Druville, these guys don't leave a trail. They've gotten smarter -no transfers, no digital footprint. Everything's in cash. If

in the snow,

came from different people. That gasoline stunt was way too low-rent to be

mind immediately landed on Daphne and Tristan-two names she'd nearly

Julian's heel, desperate to prove himself and gain the Sidler family's respect. But with Julian around, he