Chapter 13 - THE MISTAKE I MADE
I wanted Daniel confronted.
Immediately.
Rebecca said no.
Nathan agreed with her.
I hated them both for six hours.
Then I made the mistake anyway.
Daniel called me from an unknown number.
“Grace, we should talk before this becomes irreversible.”
I should have hung up.
Instead, I met him.
Public place.
Hotel lobby.
Cameras everywhere.
I told myself that made it safe.
It did not make it smart.
Daniel wore a gray suit and the same controlled expression Victoria used before anger took over.
“My sister is sick,” he said.
“What does that mean?”
“She’s under enormous pressure.”
“She hit me with a hockey stick.”
“She panicked.”
“She threatened to kill me.”
“She said something reckless.”
I stared at him.
“You forged my signature.”
“No.”
“Then why is your notarization on documents I never signed?”
His eyes barely changed.
“Those allegations need to be proven.”
There it was.
Lawyer language.
I stood.
Daniel lowered his voice.
“Sit down if you want Lily protected.”
I froze.
He slid a folder across the table.
Inside were photographs of Lily at preschool.
My stomach dropped.
“What do you want?”
“Stop cooperating with Nathan.”
“No.”
“Withdraw the paternity filing.”
“No.”
“Take three million dollars and leave New York.”
“No.”
Daniel leaned back.
“Then people will ask whether a housekeeper who steals DNA, fabricates claims, and brings a child into a violent household is fit.”
Anger overcame judgment.
I pulled out my phone.
“You’re threatening me.”
He smiled.
“Recording someone without consent can create complications depending on circumstances.”
New York allows one-party consent.
He knew that.
He was trying to scare me.
I recorded anyway.
Then I made the bigger mistake.
I told him we had Charles’s drive.
For the first time, Daniel’s face changed.
I saw fear.
Reward.
He did not know Charles had preserved evidence.
But I had just warned him.
I left immediately and called Rebecca.
She was furious.
“You told him about the drive?”
“Yes.”
“Grace.”
“I know.”
“No, you don’t. That evidence connects the loan, Project Harbor, and the forged release.”
“It’s copied.”
“That’s not the only risk.”
Daniel could destroy corroborating originals.
Pressure witnesses.
Move money.
Change strategy.
My attempt to gain power had given it away.
By midnight, Daniel’s law office reported a burst pipe had damaged its basement records room.
Fire department records later confirmed water damage.
Coincidence was possible.
Timing was not comforting.
The original notary journals Rebecca planned to subpoena were stored there.
Some survived.
Some did not.
I cried from frustration.
Nathan sat beside me.
“You made a mistake.”
“I know.”
“I made four years of them.”
“That doesn’t make mine smaller.”
“No.”
He did not comfort me with false equivalence.
That helped.
Then Rebecca called again.
Daniel had filed an emergency petition accusing me of extortion.
Attached was the hotel surveillance video.
No audio.
Just me accepting a folder from him and leaving with it.
He claimed the folder contained a financial offer I demanded.
My own meeting had given him footage he could distort.
May you like
And now the narrative was shifting against me.
📖 Grace’s unauthorized meeting warned Daniel about preserved evidence and gave him video he twisted into an extortion claim, costing her the advantage she had fought to build. 👇
