Chapter 348
Lydia sniffed. “Well, sit in the back. The front is for family.”
“I am Effie’s mother,” Isolde said. “That makes me family.”
“Effie is a girl,” Lydia sneered. “Kaiden is the heir.”
The misogyny was blatant, ancient, and rotting at its core. A cold amusement touched Isolde’s lips — a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. Heir to what? she thought. A legacy built on a lie. They’re all guarding a secret I could detonate with a single phone call.
She said nothing.
Instead, she gave Lydia one final, measured look — cool enough to make the old woman unconsciously step back — and walked past her without another word.
𝖩𝘰𝗂ո 𝗼𝘂𝘳 c𝗼𝗆𝘮𝘶𝘯і𝘁у оո g𝘢l𝗇𝗼v𝖾l𝘀.co𝘮
She did not sit in the back.
She took her place in the third row, directly behind the family pew, and watched the back of Grayson’s head as the service began.
The air inside St. Patrick’s Cathedral was thick and suffocating, heavy with burning frankincense, melting beeswax, and the damp wool of expensive coats.
Isolde sat in the third-row pew, her spine a rigid line of steel, her black heels planted softly against the ancient stone floor. With every new arrival who processed down the center aisle, heads turned. A ripple of low whispers followed, but their eyes always found their way back to her.
“That’s the ex-wife.”
“What is she doing here?”
“I heard she was forced out of the penthouse.”
Isolde kept her chin level. She didn’t look at the faces of the Manhattan elite. She fixed her gaze on the polished wood of the pews ahead, where the family was beginning to gather.
She noticed an empty space at the edge of the front pew, beside Grayson’s cousin, Serena Lancaster. It was the only seat remaining. Before she could even consider moving toward it, Serena glanced back, her eyes meeting Isolde’s for a fraction of a second. Her lips were painted a muted, respectful nude, but her eyes were bright with malice.
Without a word, Serena lifted her large black leather handbag from her lap and set it deliberately on the empty seat beside her, claiming the space. She then turned to the person on her other side, engaging them in an intense, whispered exchange and creating a wall with her back.
“Family only, Isolde,” Serena’s voice carried back — a stage whisper calibrated precisely for the surrounding rows. “Guests are further back.”
Isolde stopped breathing.
The gesture was a blunt, aggressive instrument of social exclusion. She slowly turned her head and looked past the human and leather barrier Serena had constructed.
She looked at Grayson.
He was sitting perfectly straight, his broad shoulders filling his tailored black suit, his gaze fixed on the mahogany casket blanketed in white lilies. He felt her looking — she could see the tense cord of muscle jumping in his jaw. He did not turn his head. He did not intervene. His silence was a heavy, suffocating endorsement of Serena’s cruelty.
.