She won’t change her mind.

I beg and plead with her while she sits in the back seat of the car in her beautiful dress, but she won’t listen. She won’t let her father hurt me, even if she ruins us. Even if I’d rather be ruined than lose her.

With Fritz as his escort, her father gets in the driver’s seat without a word. Fritz has already threatened him with arrest if he opens his mouth, and he goes quietly. Destiny gets in the passenger’s side. She’s a poor imitation of Grace, with none of the elegance or strength.

Holding Destiny’s door so she can’t close it, I lean down. “Not your first time out this way, is it?” I say.

“What?” She turns her icy blue eyes on me. At first she looks confused, then terrified. “That’s right,” I say. “Grace and I know, Destiny. Safe trip.”

I shut her door. The engine starts. Grace keeps her eyes in her lap, looking up at the last second to put her hand to her window. The car drives away, and my captive girl is gone.

She decided to kill me, after all. I just didn’t think she’d do it like this.

All I can see is her face. The pain and disbelief. The confusion. No one told her about Michael, not even me. The man she gave everything to. I demanded truth and gave her back lies of omission. I hate myself for it.

The party breaks up not long after Grace leaves. After the last guest drives away, I go down to the ballroom. It’s a beautiful wreck of privilege and debauchery, Grace’s final gorgeous gift to me. The gold-painted servers are wearing uniforms now and breaking down the tables. Everywhere I look are vestiges of Grace’s incredible, sensual mind. Crumbs of blood-red cake. Droplets of candle wax. White velvet, white linen, gold. A forgotten swag bag on a chair.

Grace’s napkin, still beside her half-empty plate. I touch the red lip-print and feel sick to my soul.

I can’t bear to fucking look at it. It looks like perfect happiness, just after it’s been shattered by tragedy.

I had such hopes for us. For her.

When I pushed her to be strong and independent, I didn’t think she’d use that strength to walk out the door. I didn’t expect her to be so determined. Not this soon.

I walk up to the guys taking down the drapes and decorations. It’s all I can do to keep my voice steady.

“Get it all out of here,” I say, bitterness burning through my limbs. “I want everything gone in two hours.”

It’s almost sunrise when the last truck drives away. I can hear vacuums in the ballroom as the last sign of Grace is swept up and cleaned away.

Not from my life. Never from my life.

She’ll be back if I have to fucking drag her. I’ve done it before and I can do it again.

I send the money as soon as I’m alone. Electronic payments, one in Grace’s name, one in the Winthrops’. They’ll get text notifications. 6.5 million dollars waiting for each of them. Because Grace earned it. That, and so much more.

If this payment is Grace’s revenge, it sure doesn’t feel like it. It feels like a slap in the face to her, and everything we had. Like the only thing left is money. It makes me feel fucking sick.

I wanted her to be strong. Right now, I wish she were weak. I wish she’d come running back to me, begging me to give up everything for her. I wish she didn’t care what her father did, or who he hurt.

But she’s strong and principled, and goddamnit she loves me. She protected me tonight, like I’ve always tried to protect her.

I hate her for it, and I couldn’t be more proud. She’s the strongest person I know. I’m forever in love with her.

I should go to bed, but why bother? I’ll never sleep. All I’ll find upstairs are remnants of her. Her hair in the bathroom sink. Her new clothes in the closet. Her presence all over my life.

I make coffee and stand at the front window, willing her to come back. I can picture a cab driving up with her and all of her things. Luggage and coats and stuffed animals falling out of the back as I go outside to help her. I can see her face, full of innocence and hope. I can see it all so clearly I can’t believe it’s not about to happen. It fucking has to.

But it doesn’t. My phone doesn’t ring. The phone I bought her sits forgotten on the kitchen counter.

I’m just turning away from the window when I see a gray sedan pulling off the main road. My heart jumps in my chest. She’s here. I knew she’d come back. She can’t live without me, any more than I can live without her.

The car comes down my driveway and stops. I’m already on the porch when the driver door opens. Everything inside me dies when I realize it’s not Grace. No sweet stacks of clothes still on hangers. No tears. No warm, tender body rushing into my arms.

The person getting out of the car is a man. James’s father.

Fuck me. I guess this is the kind of unexpected visit a few million dollars can buy.

He clomps up my stairs. He looks sober, but his eyes are sleepless and bloodshot. He’s got at least five days growth of beard. I thought he looked like hell during the trial, when his marriage and business were still intact. He looks ten times worse.

“Mr. Winthrop,” I say. “Good morning.”

He stops about five feet away. He’s wearing work pants and boots, like he’s on his way to a blue-collar job. “Why’d you send me money?”

He doesn’t sound friendly. I didn’t expect him to.

“I promised Grace I would.”

He sucks a front tooth. “Her parents have been calling me, worried about her. She’s been with you, hasn’t she?”

I lean against the side of the house. “Yes, she has.”

“I don’t want to know how that arrangement worked.”

“I wasn’t going to tell you.”

Smirking, he zips his bomber jacket against the cold dawn air. “You pay her, too?”

“Yes.”

He squints at the sky and clears his throat. “Well, I don’t want your money. I won’t accept it.”

On any other day, I might actually care. But this morning, after losing Grace, I don’t give a shit. I wouldn’t blink if he flushed every fucking dollar.

“Look,” I say. “Your son’s passing was hard. You’ve gone through a lot with your marriage and your business. Money doesn’t solve that but it makes things a little easier.”

He huffs. “I told you, I don’t want it.”

“You can say whatever you want about me. I’m not trying to keep you quiet.”

“I know,” he says. His hands shake as he pulls out a pack of cigarettes.

“Do you?”

He gives me a sharp look. “I just said I know, all right? I don’t want it because I don’t deserve it.”

“Bullshit,” I say.

“You’re not listening to me!” he says. Boots thudding, he starts pacing across the porch.

I put my palms up. “I’m listening. Say what you’ve got to say.”

He takes a long drag and holds it in. “One of James’s friends visited me last week. One of his coder friends.”

“Okay.” I’m not in the mood for a fucking story. I’m way too heartbroken to listen.

“He had something to get off his chest. Something eating him up about my son.”

My spine tingles. All of a sudden I’m interested.

“What did he say?”

“That James wanted a job with your company.”

“Yes,” I say. “He did.”

“And he was offered one, but he got pissed off. He thought he deserved a better position for more money. And when he didn’t get it, the pompous little shit hacked into your systems. He was going to make all your information public, put it out on the Internet. Is that true?”

“It’s true,” I say. “That’s exactly how it happened.”

His eyebrows go up. He seems surprised. “So you already know all this.”

“I’ve known since your son called to negotiate, as he called it. Give him the job he wanted, or he’d prove how inferior Phantom was by publishing the names of my people overseas. People who could die if their identities got out.”

His eyebrows twitch together. “He told you that? That was his plan?”

“Let’s just say he got his point across. But I wasn’t in a negotiating mood.”

Mr. Winthrop scrubs a hand over his face. “How’d he end up dead out here? Can you make that make sense to me?”

“No,” I say. “But I can tell you the truth.”

His eyes are watery. It could be smoke or not enough sleep. I hope so.

“James saw me pull out of the parking garage at my office. It was a couple days after we found out the system had been hacked. He was in his car, I was in mine. It was a really shitty coincidence.”

“So this road rage thing…”

“Didn’t happen. He followed me. I tried to lose him but I didn’t try very hard. He was already speeding. He had a girl in the car and I didn’t want him to kill her.”

“What the hell did he want?”

“What any kid wants, I guess. To be taken seriously.”

Mr. Winthrop looks confused. He looks like he’s been confused the last two years. “What did he say to you? I mean, did he say anything?”

“That I’d disrespected him. I didn’t know how powerful he was, but I was about to find out. He was going to release everything that night. He wanted more than a job. He wanted money. He wanted to talk about it in my fucking house.”

“That doesn’t sound like my son.”

“I’m sorry. It doesn’t sound like the kid who emailed me either. I liked him at first.”

Mr. Winthrop sits and smokes. I can see him turning over questions in his mind, trying to understand. “Why didn’t you go to the police? Report him when this all started?”

“Because this stuff is hard to prove. I didn’t want it getting around. I didn’t want to ruin my company’s reputation, or his either. I thought he was a dumb kid and he’d forget about it.”

“But you made him look…I don’t know. Innocent.”

I look at James’s father, and the whole thing suddenly seems so pointless. “I guess I didn’t want to ruin his memory. He was gone. I wanted you and Grace to have something.”

“But I don’t,” he says. “I don’t have anything.”

“I’ve figured that out,” I say. “I’m just…I’m really sorry.”

He lights another cigarette. He wants to hear what happened again, so I tell him. He asks questions I’ve already answered. And when he finally stands up to leave, I ask him to keep the money. He says he’ll think about it. It feels like charity, and he doesn’t like that.

“One more thing,” he says on his way down the steps. “Before I came here, I texted Grace. I couldn’t keep it to myself anymore. It felt kind of cruel, though. She won’t see my son the same way anymore.”

I turn to go back inside. “You asked why I didn’t tell you. Now you know.”