Chapter 12 - Blood on the Marble: Grace Puts Her Life on the Line for Lucy
Evelyn raised the pistol, aiming straight between Grace’s eyes.
In that split second, Grace didn't hesitate. She didn't cower, she didn't beg, and she didn't step aside.
Channeling all the strength in her body, Grace swung the heavy iron crowbar upward, striking the barrel of Evelyn’s gun just as the weapon discharged.
BANG!
The gunshot exploded inside the enclosed carriage house like a cannon blast. The bullet went wide, shattering a high glass window in the loft.
The force of the iron strike knocked the gun from Evelyn’s hand, sending it skittering across the concrete floor toward the far corner of the barn.
Evelyn let out a feral shriek of rage and lunged forward, tackling Grace with all her weight.
Both women crashed heavily onto the floor. Evelyn clawed violently at Grace’s face, her sharp diamond rings tearing across Grace’s cheek, drawing bright red blood.
“You ruined everything!” Evelyn screamed, her hands wrapping around Grace’s throat with murderous frenzy. “I was supposed to have that money! I was supposed to be the lady of this estate!”
Grace struggled to breathe, the world spinning in dark edges as Evelyn pressed her thumbs hard into her windpipe. Yet even as her vision blurred, Grace remembered the little girl hiding in the cellar beneath her.
Summoning a final surge of adrenaline, Grace brought her knee up hard into Evelyn’s ribs.
Evelyn gasped in agonizing pain, her grip breaking as she rolled off to the side.
Grace scrambled to her feet, blood dripping from her torn cheek, gasping for air. She sprinted toward the corner where the dropped gun lay.
Evelyn recovered instantly, grabbing a heavy wooden horse-grooming stool from the wall, and swung it with vicious force.
The heavy wood struck Grace squarely across the shoulder and back.
Grace let out a sharp cry of pain, collapsing onto the concrete floor, her vision flashing white. She rolled onto her back, bruised and bleeding, as Evelyn loomed over her, picking up a sharp, jagged piece of broken timber from the floor.
“Die, you filthy peasant!” Evelyn screamed, raising the timber high above her head to strike a fatal blow to Grace’s skull.
Suddenly, the heavy oak doors of the carriage house were blown inward off their hinges with a deafening crash.
“GET AWAY FROM HER!”
A towering figure charged through the rain like a roaring lion.
Daniel Brooks slammed into Evelyn with the force of a freight train, knocking the wooden timber from her hands and pinning the deranged socialite violently against the brick wall.
Daniel’s face was unrecognizable with pure, terrifying fury. He grabbed Evelyn’s wrists, twisting them behind her back until she shrieked in agony, forcing her down onto her knees.
“Don't move,” Daniel hissed into her ear, his voice vibrating with a cold, deadly menace that made Evelyn freeze in sheer terror. “If you even look at Grace or Lucy again, God won't be able to save you from what I will do to you.”
At that exact moment, flashing red and blue lights illuminated the rain outside the carriage house.
A dozen armed Dallas SWAT officers, accompanied by Thomas and estate security, flooded through the shattered entrance, their assault rifles raised.
“Dallas Police! Hands where we can see them! Secure the suspect!”
Two SWAT officers immediately moved in, forcing Evelyn down onto the floor and locking heavy steel cuffs around her wrists.
Daniel didn't even look back at his cousin.
He dropped to his knees beside Grace, his hands shaking violently as he gathered her battered, bleeding body into his arms.
“Grace... Grace, look at me,” Daniel choked out, tears streaming down his rain-soaked face as he pressed his hand against her bleeding cheek. “Stay with me, darling. Please. Look at Daddy... look at Daniel.”
Grace weakly opened her eyes, a faint, trembling smile touching her lips as she looked up into his frantic blue eyes.
“Lucy...” Grace whispered, her voice barely audible over the sound of the rain. “In the cellar... she’s safe...”
“She’s safe, my love. She’s safe because of you,” Daniel wept, pulling Grace tightly against his chest, kissing her forehead over and over. “Medics! Get the paramedics in here NOW!”
From the open trapdoor in the floor, a tiny head peeked out into the room.
Lucy climbed up the ladder, clutching Milo the wooden rabbit in one hand. She saw Daniel holding Grace on the floor, rushed across the concrete, and threw her little arms around both of them, weeping tears of pure relief.
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“Daddy! Grace!” Lucy cried, pressing her face against Grace’s shoulder.
Daniel wrapped his powerful arms around both of them, holding his entire world tightly in the middle of that broken carriage house, as the sirens wailed and the storm finally began to clear.
