Chapter 288
A sickening crack echoed over the music, followed by a child’s raw, guttural scream — not a cry, but a high, piercing shriek of pure agony.
In the lobby, Grayson had just ended his call. The sound cut through the thumping bass and the noise of the gym like a blade through skin. It was the sound that makes every parent’s blood run cold.
He knew that voice.
Grayson dropped his phone. It shattered on the concrete floor. He lurched forward, a blinding pain shooting through his fractured ribs. He gritted his teeth and shoved through the crowd with his good shoulder, breathing in ragged gasps. He wasn’t sprinting — he was a wounded animal charging toward its cub.
One hour later, the emergency room waiting area at Mount Sinai Hospital was freezing cold, the fluorescent lights buzzing overhead.
The double doors flew open.
Isolde burst into the room, still wearing her work boots. Her jeans were covered in white plaster dust, her hair wild and escaping from a messy bun. She looked like a madwoman.
She scanned the room. Grayson was pacing near the vending machines. Belle sat in a plastic chair, dabbing at her dry eyes with a tissue.
Isolde crossed the room in three long strides.
“Where is she?” Isolde demanded, her voice a low, terrifying growl.
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Grayson stopped. He looked pale and sick. “The doctors are with her. They are doing X-rays.”
“What happened?”
Grayson swallowed hard. “She fell from the climbing wall. She has a fractured wrist — the other one this time. And a mild concussion.”
Isolde stopped breathing. A concussion. A broken bone. Again.
Belle rose from her chair, dabbing her eyes, arranging her best victim expression. “Isolde, I am so, so sorry,” she whimpered, stepping forward. “I was right there. She just… slipped. She’s so clumsy on her feet.”
Isolde turned her head slowly to look at Belle.
“Clumsy?” The word came out barely above a whisper.
“Yes,” Belle said, gaining confidence from Grayson’s silence. “I mean, maybe if she did more sports instead of just reading those boring books all day, she’d be stronger. She just let go.”
The air left the room.
Blaming the victim. Blaming a five-year-old child for nearly dying.
Isolde didn’t scream. She didn’t argue.
She walked directly up to Belle. Calmly. Deliberately. She planted her feet, twisted her hips, and channeled every ounce of her rage, her fear, and her hatred into a single motion.
The slap was explosive — twice as hard as the blow she had delivered to Cheryl. Belle’s head snapped to the side. The force knocked her backward into the row of plastic chairs, taking two of them down with her in a tangle of limbs and designer clothing.
The sharp crack of the slap echoed through the sterile ER waiting room, silencing the low murmur of the nurses’ station.
Belle lay sprawled across the plastic chairs. She touched her cheek, eyes wide with genuine shock, a bright red welt already rising on her flawless skin. She looked up at Grayson, her eyes filling instantly with tears.
“Gray…” Belle whimpered. “She hit me!”
.