Chapter 398

Chapter 398:

Effie was clutching her iPad. Her small face was streaked with tears, her nose red, her chest heaving with silent, painful sobs.

Isolde looked at the glowing screen.

It was the photo. The Aspen photo.

Effie looked up. Her large, wet eyes held a crushing, innocent devastation.

“Why didn’t Daddy take me?” she asked, her voice cracking.

The words landed like a knife in Isolde’s stomach. Her breath hitched. She dropped to her knees beside the bed and pulled Effie into a fierce, desperate hug, pressing her daughter’s face into her shoulder, shielding her from the blue light of the screen.

“Because he is busy, baby,” Isolde said, her throat burning with the effort of keeping her voice steady. “He had to work p>

Effie’s small hands gripped her shirt. “He wasn’t too busy for Kaiden,” she sobbed into the fabric.

A wave of pure, unadulterated rage washed over Isolde — dark and violent, radiating from her chest out to her fingertips. Grayson had built a fortress of lies to protect Kaiden, Belle’s illegitimate son, while treating his own flesh and blood as a defective afterthought.

“Kaiden is different,” Isolde said, struggling for words as she stroked Effie’s hair. “You are special, Effie. You are my little shieldmaiden p>

She held her daughter until the tears stopped, rocking her slowly until Effie’s breathing evened out and she fell into a heavy, exhausted sleep.

𝘞𝘦 𝘶𝘱𝘥𝘢𝘵𝘦 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺 𝘸𝘦𝘦𝘬 𝘰𝘯

Isolde laid her gently back against the pillows, took the iPad, turned off the screen, and walked out of the room.

She moved straight through the apartment and pushed open the glass doors to the balcony.

The cold night air hit her face. It did nothing to cool the burning rage inside her. Her hands were shaking.

She unlocked her phone and pulled up Grayson’s contact. She hit call.

It rang three times. The automated voicemail clicked on. He was probably asleep in his luxury cabin.

Isolde lowered the phone and opened her messages. Her thumbs flew across the keyboard, driven by pure fury.

Stay away from us. If you ever make her cry again, I will burn your entire legacy to the ground.

She stared at the words. The cursor blinked.

Then she held the backspace key down until the screen was empty.

Too emotional. Too much of a warning. And predators never warned their prey. A text was a plea. A bankruptcy was a statement.

Isolde locked her phone and looked out over the glittering Manhattan skyline.

She wasn’t going to yell at him. She was going to hit him exactly where it would cause the most agonizing, irreversible pain. She was going to empty his wallet.

Monday morning. The air outside St. Jude Preparatory School was crisp and smelled of expensive exhaust fumes.

A line of luxury SUVs idled near the wrought-iron gates.