Chapter 2 - The Family I Never Knew Existed
The door opened before Michael had time to move.
I shut my eye immediately.
My hand fell limp against the hospital sheet.
“Why are you still in here?”
Ryan.
Michael cleared his throat.
“I forgot my phone.”
There was a pause.
I imagined Ryan studying him.
Michael had always been terrible at lying. His ears turned red when he was nervous. I had teased him about it for years.
Now that harmless weakness might get both of us caught.
“Your phone is in your hand,” Ryan said.
Another pause.
Then Michael laughed awkwardly.
“Right. Long night.”
I heard Ryan move closer.
“You okay?”
“I'm not the one whose fiancée is lying in a hospital bed.”
Ryan sighed.
“We've been through this.”
“No. You've talked. I listened.”
“Then keep listening.”
The air changed.
I could hear the warning in Ryan's voice even with my eyes closed.
Michael apparently heard it too.
“I'm going downstairs.”
“Good.”
The door opened.
Michael left.
Ryan remained.
I felt him standing beside me.
For nearly a minute, he said nothing.
Then his fingers brushed hair away from the bandaged side of my forehead.
I used to love that gesture.
He had done it on our first vacation together in Charleston while we sat on a hotel balcony watching a thunderstorm roll over the harbor.
“You're beautiful when you're quiet,” he had joked.
At the time, I laughed.
Now I wondered how many jokes had been warnings.
Ryan leaned down and kissed the uninjured side of my forehead.
“Sleep, baby.”
The door closed again.
I waited.
This time I counted to one hundred.
Michael returned ten minutes later.
“You can't stay here,” I whispered.
“Neither can you.”
“What does that mean?”
“He's already talking about moving you.”
“Where?”
“Private rehabilitation clinic. Controlled access.”
My stomach tightened.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
Of course.
Ryan didn't want me recovering in a hospital full of nurses, doctors, visitors, and security cameras he couldn't control.
He wanted me somewhere private.
Somewhere he chose.
“Then we don't have tomorrow.”
Michael pulled a chair beside the bed.
“What are you thinking?”
“I need proof.”
“You heard him.”
“I heard him. You heard him. That's two people against Ryan Prescott and an army of attorneys.”
Michael rubbed both hands over his face.
“You don't understand how bad this is.”
“I understand perfectly.”
“No, Grace. Ryan has contracts worth hundreds of millions. People depend on him. His label, agents, touring company, sponsors. If this gets out, they'll all start protecting themselves.”
“Then help me before they know there's anything to protect.”
Michael stared at the floor.
“Why should you trust me?”
It was the first intelligent question anyone had asked that night.
I didn't.
Not completely.
Michael had managed Ryan for twelve years.
He knew about Madison.
He knew about Leo.
Maybe he didn't know about the attack or Dr. Lawson, but he had helped hide Ryan's double life.
“You tell me,” I said.
Michael's face tightened.
“I knew about Madison.”
I waited.
“I knew about Leo.”
The words still hurt even though I expected them.
“How long?”
“Four years.”
My throat tightened.
“You stood in my house.”
“I know.”
“You came to Thanksgiving dinner.”
“I know.”
“You watched me cry after losing my pregnancies.”
His eyes dropped.
“Yes.”
“And you never told me he had a son.”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because I told myself it wasn't my life to destroy.”
I almost laughed.
“My life was already being destroyed.”
“I know that now.”
“You knew it then.”
He didn't argue.
That was probably why I kept listening.
Michael opened his phone.
“Madison Reed. Thirty-two. She lives outside Nashville.”
He showed me a photograph.
A woman stood beside a swimming pool.
Brown hair.
Simple white shirt.
A small boy with Ryan's unmistakable dark curls wrapped his arms around her legs.
Leo.
My chest hurt.
The child had Ryan's smile.
That might have been the cruelest detail.
Ryan and I had spent nights imagining what our children might look like.
He once told me he hoped a son would have my eyes.
All along, he already knew what his son looked like.
“Does Madison know about me?”
“Yes.”
“Does she know what he did to my pregnancies?”
Michael shook his head.
“I don't think so.”
“Does she know about the attack?”
“No.”
“How can you be sure?”
“Because tonight was the first time I knew.”
I studied the photograph again.
Madison didn't look like a villain.
That meant nothing, of course.
Photographs lied.
I had five years of photographs proving that.
“What does she want?”
“Ryan told me she wants him to acknowledge Leo privately and eventually marry her.”
“Eventually?”
“After your public marriage has served its purpose.”
I looked at him.
“He planned to marry both of us?”
“Not legally. He talked about some private ceremony with Madison.”
I felt nauseated.
Ryan hadn't built a love triangle.
He had built a business model.
Me for the public.
Madison for the private life.
Leo for the family he actually wanted.
“What about Dr. Lawson?”
Michael hesitated.
“I know Ryan introduced you.”
“He insisted I use him.”
“I remember.”
“Find out everything.”
“Grace—”
“Payments. Messages. Appointments. Anything connecting him to Ryan.”
“That could take time.”
“We have six days.”
His expression changed.
“You're still thinking about the wedding?”
“Yes.”
“You can't possibly marry him.”
“I didn't say I was going to marry him.”
For the first time that night, Michael seemed to understand.
The wedding wasn't just Ryan's stage.
It could become mine.
By morning, Ryan's public-relations machine was already working.
Television anchors called my attack a tragedy.
Fans left flowers outside the hospital.
The hashtag #PrayForGrace trended nationally.
Ryan posted a black-and-white photograph of our hands intertwined.
The caption said:
Nothing will keep me from standing beside the woman I love.
I read it from Michael's phone.
More than two million likes.
I laughed until my injuries hurt.
At nine that morning, Ryan returned carrying coffee and flowers.
I pretended to wake while he sat beside me.
“Grace?”
I opened my left eye slowly.
His performance was extraordinary.
Shock.
Relief.
Tears.
He pressed my hand to his lips.
“Oh my God.”
I stared at him.
Five years of loving someone teaches you their face.
Five minutes of knowing the truth teaches you everything their face can hide.
“Ryan?”
My voice came out weak.
“I'm here.”
“What happened?”
His eyes softened.
“You were attacked.”
I let fear enter my expression.
“My face?”
“Don't think about that right now.”
“Is it bad?”
“No.”
A lie without hesitation.
“You're beautiful.”
Another lie.
Maybe not about my appearance.
About what beauty meant to him.
I began crying.
That part wasn't acting.
Ryan leaned forward and held me.
I stared over his shoulder at the hospital wall.
“Did they catch her?”
“Not yet.”
His hand froze for perhaps half a second.
Then continued rubbing my back.
“The police will.”
“What if she comes back?”
“She won't.”
“How do you know?”
“I'll protect you.”
There it was again.
Protection.
I closed my eye and rested against him.
For five years, I had thought safety meant being held by Ryan.
Now safety meant making him believe I still wanted to be.
Later that afternoon, detectives visited.
Ryan tried to remain in the room.
I told them I didn't remember anything beyond the woman approaching me.
That part was almost true.
Before leaving, one detective asked whether anyone might have wanted to stop the wedding.
Ryan laughed softly.
“Half the internet wants to marry me. I don't think that makes them criminals.”
Everyone smiled politely.
I didn't.
That evening, Michael sent me one message on a disposable phone he had hidden inside my overnight bag.
Found Lawson connection. Bigger than expected.
My hands trembled as I typed.
How big?
His answer arrived thirty seconds later.
Ryan's private company paid Lawson $240,000 over three years.
I stared at the screen.
Three years.
Exactly when my fertility treatments began.
Another message appeared.
There's more. We need to talk alone.
At midnight, Michael slipped into my room.
His face told me whatever he had discovered was worse than money.
“What?”
He placed a folder beside me.
Inside were copies of appointment schedules.
Invoices.
Encrypted messages.
One line immediately caught my attention.
Increase dosage after positive test.
My stomach turned.
“What dosage?”
Michael shook his head.
“I don't know.”
Another page showed a transfer made two days before my second miscarriage.
Another before my third.
I couldn't breathe.
“Grace.”
“I believed my body killed my babies.”
Michael looked shattered.
“Don't.”
“I blamed myself.”
“Grace—”
“For three years.”
I pressed the papers against my chest.
Then I saw something at the bottom of the final page.
A name.
Madison Reed.
Patient referral.
Dr. Lawson.
Four years earlier.
I looked at Michael.
“He treated her too?”
“I didn't know.”
A realization formed slowly.
“What if Madison knows more than you think?”
Michael didn't answer.
My burner phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
One sentence appeared on the screen.
If you want the truth about Leo, don't trust Michael.
I looked up.
May you like
Michael was still standing beside my bed.
And suddenly I no longer knew whether I had one enemy in the room—or two.
