Reclaiming Mrs. Wolfe

Chapter 8

The shockwave from the explosion rattled the reinforced glass of the master suite, a dull, heavy thud that felt like it had detonated inside my own ribcage. The orange glow of the fireball painted the falling rain in shades of blood and rust, reflecting off Ethan’s face.

"Julian!" Ethan’s voice was a guttural rip of agony. He threw his entire weight against the bedroom door, the solid oak groaning but refusing to yield. "Julian, no! Open this door! Grace, call someone! Call the police!"

I lunged for my phone on the nightstand, my fingers trembling so violently I nearly dropped it. I swiped at the screen, but the display was dead. Not out of battery—the screen was a flat, mocking black with a single, glowing red icon in the center: a wolf’s head.

"Signal jammer," I whispered, my voice lost in the wail of the house alarm. "She’s cut us off. Ethan, she’s cut off everything."

Ethan stopped slamming against the door. He turned, his breath coming in ragged, shallow hitches. His eyes were wide, darting toward the monitors where Eleanor’s face still lingered, her expression as cold and stagnant as a frozen pond.

"She killed him," Ethan whispered, the realization sinking in like a lead weight. "She didn't mean to kill me. She meant to kill whoever was in that car. She purged the 'weak' brother."

The middle of the night became a suffocating pressure cooker of grief and realization.

Ethan slid down the door, his head falling into his hands. The "Urban God," the man who had controlled markets and crushed competitors with a flick of his wrist, was gone. In his place was a broken boy, weeping for a brother he had spent years competing with.

"I told him to leave," Ethan sobbed. "I told him to go back to his gallery. I was so busy trying to win, Grace. I just wanted to win you back. I didn't want this. I never wanted this."

I walked over to him, the anger I had carried for years suddenly feeling hollow. I knelt on the plush carpet, ignoring the nausea that flared in my gut. I reached out, hesitant, and placed a hand on his shoulder.

"Ethan," I said softly. "Look at me."

He looked up, his face a mask of tears and raw, unfiltered pain. "She’s a monster, Grace. My grandmother... the woman who raised us. She’s a monster."

"She’s a Wolfe," I corrected, the bitterness returning to my tone. "This is the legacy you were so proud of. This is the 'strength' she taught you. To prune the branches. To protect the tree."

"Is that what I was doing to you?" He grabbed my hand, his grip desperate. "Is that what those five years were? Pruning you? Making you small so I could be big?"

"Yes," I said, not flinching. "But you didn't succeed. You just made me grow underground where you couldn't see the roots."

He leaned his forehead against mine, his hot tears wetting my cheeks. In this moment of shared horror, the billionaire and the mogul were stripped away. We were just two people trapped in a haunted house with a ghost who refused to stay dead.

"I’m sorry," he whispered. "For every dinner I missed. For every time I didn't look at your sketches. For every second I spent making you feel invisible. I’m so sorry, Grace."

"Don't apologize to me, Ethan," I said, my heart breaking for the man I used to love. "Apologize to Julian. If he’s still..."

I couldn't finish the sentence. The explosion had been massive. The Devil’s Elbow was a thousand-foot drop into a rocky ravine.

"We have to get out of here," I said, pulling him up. "Eleanor said she’s in the basement wing. If she’s controlling the house from there, we have to find the master override. The staircase in the wardrobe—it’s how I found her."

We moved toward the wardrobe, but before Ethan could reach the latch, the room’s lights flickered and died. Emergency red lighting kicked in, bathing the suite in a sinister, rhythmic pulse.

The monitors crackled. Eleanor’s voice returned, but it wasn't the raspy whisper from before. It was amplified, booming through the house’s surround-sound system.

"You’ve spent enough time mourning, Ethan. Grief is for the unproductive. The board of directors has already been notified of Julian’s 'tragic accident.' The narrative is simple: a heartbroken young man, distraught over his brother’s stable marriage, lost control of his vehicle."

"You're a murderer!" Ethan screamed at the ceiling.

"I am a curator," Eleanor replied. "Now, Grace. The final document is on the desk. Use the biometric scanner on the tablet. Sign over Sterling International to the Wolfe Trust. Do it, and I’ll unlock the door. You can go to the crash site. You can even try to find whatever is left of your 'fiancé'."

I looked at the tablet on the desk. It had flickered on, showing a digital contract that would strip me of everything I had built in the last two years.

"Don't do it, Grace," Ethan said, stepping in front of the desk. "She’ll just find another way to trap us. Don't give her what she wants."

"If I don't, Julian dies alone in the cold!" I shouted. "If there’s even a one percent chance he’s alive, I have to go to him!"

"And what about the baby?" Ethan gripped my shoulders. "If you sign that, she owns the child. She’ll raise them just like she raised us. She’ll turn them into a weapon."

I looked at the tablet, then at the window where the fire was starting to die down. The conflict was a jagged blade in my heart. Save the man who loved me, or save the child from the woman who had created this nightmare?

I reached for the tablet. My finger hovered over the biometric scanner.

"Grace, stop!" Ethan lunged for the device, but a sharp c***k echoed through the room.

A hidden panel in the wall slid open, and a small, automated security turret—something I didn't even know existed in this old house—pointed its red laser dot directly at my stomach.

"Sign, Grace," Eleanor’s voice was a cold command. "Or the Wolfe line ends tonight. I’ve lived long enough to know when to start over from scratch."

My breath hitched. My hand froze. I looked at Ethan, who was standing perfectly still, the red dot dancing across the fabric of my dress.

But then, the red dot moved. It didn't move away. It moved to Ethan’s chest.

"Actually," Eleanor mused, "if you won't sign, perhaps the problem isn't the mother. Perhaps it’s the father who failed to keep his house in order.

Ethan, be a good boy and step away from the desk. Or prove you're a true Wolfe and take the bullet for your legacy."

Ethan didn't move away. He stepped closer to me, shielding my body with his own, his eyes fixed on the camera lens in the corner of the room.

"Do it, Grandmother," Ethan said, a ghost of a smile on his face. "Kill me. But if you do, the shares revert to the charitable trust. You’ll be a queen of a kingdom of dirt."

A heavy silence fell over the room. Then, the bedroom door clicked open.

"Fine," Eleanor whispered. "Go. Run to your fire. But remember... I’m the one who gave you the keys."

We didn't wait. We ran. We ignored the elevator and flew down the grand staircase, bursting out into the rain. We didn't take the SUV. We took the old gardener’s truck, the engine screaming as Ethan floored it toward the Devil’s Elbow.

As we reached the cliffside, Ethan slammed on the brakes. The fire was still burning below, but the SUV hadn't gone over the edge. It was smashed against a massive oak tree, the front end crumpled.

Ethan jumped out before the truck even stopped.

"JULIAN!"

I followed, my heart in my throat. We reached the car, and Ethan ripped the door off its hinges with a strength I didn't know he had.

The driver’s seat was empty.

There was blood on the airbag. There was a shoe on the floorboard. But Julian was gone.

I looked down into the dark ravine, my voice lost in the wind. "Julian?"

Then, my phone vibrated in my pocket. The jammer was down. It was a video message from an unknown number. I hit play.

The video was shaky. It showed the interior of the SUV just seconds before the crash. Julian wasn't driving. He was tied up in the back seat, his mouth taped shut. The driver was a man in a black mask—someone I recognized from the Wolfe security team.

The man looked into the camera, pulled off his mask, and my heart stopped.

It was Silas.

"The game is just beginning, Grace," Silas said to the camera as he steered the car toward the tree, jumping out a split second before impact.

The video cut to a live feed. It showed Julian, unconscious and bleeding, being loaded into a helicopter on a hidden pad deep in the woods.

And standing next to the helicopter, perfectly healthy and looking at her watch, was a woman who looked exactly like Grace Sterling.

"Who is that?" Ethan gasped, staring at the screen.

I looked at the woman on the screen—the woman who had my face, my eyes, my empire.

"That's not me," I whispered. "That's my sister. The one Eleanor told me died at birth."