Page 70 of Shattered By Grace

Her fingers twitched against the rim of her glass.Where the hell do I even start?

Clawdia, unbothered by the weight suffocating the room, sprawled lazily in the chair next to her, tail flicking idly. Every now and then, the cat stretched, barely cracking an eye open before resettling, completely indifferent to the storm brewing inside Victoria’s mind.

Must be nice to be so damn oblivious.

She let out a bitter breath, rubbing a hand over her face.What if I don’t want to know? What if what’s in these pages changes everything?

But deep down, she already knew it would. It had to. And there was no going back now.

Her gaze dropped back to the notebook, the folder, the letter. The answers were right there.

She just had to be brave enough to face them.

Victoria downed half her glass of wine in one long gulp, the burn doing nothing to steady the tremor in her hands. Now or never.

She reached for the notebook, fingers hesitating on the worn leather cover before flipping it open. This was the missing piece, the unknown variable in the tangled mess of secrets and lies.

Her breath caught as she scanned the first few pages. This is everything. The ledger wasn’t just notes, it was a carefully organized record of every payment made to other families, every deal struck, every operation funded.

Each entry was meticulously labeled, a name or organization scrawled in the top corner, followed by a list of what they were going into business for. Weapons. Drugs. Trafficking. Pages and pages of it, laid out in brutal, damning detail.

She kept flipping, her pulse pounding with each turn. Fifty, maybe sixty contracts. Proof of just how deep the corruption ran. Then she turned another page. And froze.

Her father’s name.

The contract for Victor Grace.

Her stomach lurched as she read through the formal language, bile rising in her throat. It outlined his role within the Locke Empire. His duties, his access to financial records, his loyalty clause. A carefully constructed document that ensured his silence.

But it was the clause beneath it that stole the air from her lungs.

A guardianship contingency.

Her breath hitched as her eyes traced the precise, calculated wording.

In the event that Victor Grace violates the terms of this agreement or acts in opposition to the interests of the Locke Empire, full legal guardianship of his minor child, Victoria Grace, will be transferred to Cassian Locke, with all parental rights null and void. No other claims to guardianship shall be recognized.

The words blurred as she read them again. And again.

It wasn’t just a death sentence for her father. It was a claim on her life.

At fifteen, she would have legally belonged to Cassian. And when her father first signed this contract, she had been only ten.

A sharp, choking noise tore from her throat as she forced herself to look at the bottom of the page. There it was.

Victor Grace’s signature.

Victoria sat motionless, staring at the contract, the words blurring together no matter how many times she read them.

Her father’s signature at the bottom felt like a punch to the gut. He signed it.

Of course he signed it. He had to. There was no way out of a deal with Cassian Locke, not without blood. But knowing that didn’t take the sting away. It didn’t erase the betrayal coiled tight in her chest.

Her hand trembled as she traced the ink, as if touching it would somehow make sense of it all. Did he truly think he could outmaneuver Cassian?

Her mind raced, trying to piece it together. Her father had always been careful and very meticulous. He wouldn’t have signed something like this without a plan. What was the plan?

Was this why he kept the ledger? A failsafe? A way to take down the Empire from the inside before Cassian could turn on him? Or was he already feeding intel to someone? Who was he working with?

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