Chapter 9 - WHAT ISABELLA DID
“I did not kill your father.”
Those were Isabella's first words.
“I didn't ask whether you did.”
She flinched.
Good.
We sat in her sunroom.
No Luke.
No attorneys.
My choice.
She looked older than she had at the dinner with Vanessa.
Maybe power ages badly once people stop obeying it.
“Grant wanted Michael frightened.”
“Into doing what?”
“Dropping his claim.”
“What claim?”
Dad wanted compensation for the coordinated destruction of Bennett Logistics.
Grant feared exposure.
“He asked Peter Vale to scare him.”
“How?”
“I don't know exactly.”
“Try harder.”
Isabella swallowed.
“Peter had access to medication. Grant believed a health scare would make your father back down.”
My skin went cold.
“What medication?”
“Something that could elevate blood pressure.”
“Dad had hypertension.”
“I know.”
“And you knew?”
“Yes.”
I stood.
She did too.
“I stopped it.”
“Did you?”
“I called Peter.”
“When?”
“That night.”
“What did you say?”
“Nothing permanent.”
The notebook.
I. says no permanent solution.
“You still allowed him to drug my father.”
Her face broke.
“I thought it would frighten him.”
“And he died.”
“I didn't know Peter had already done it.”
Silence.
There it was.
Maybe not murder intent.
Still horrifying.
“You helped cause my father's death.”
She whispered:
“Yes.”
I wanted to hate her cleanly.
But she continued.
“After Michael died, I forced Grant to stop pursuing the property.”
“For how long?”
“Until you married Luke.”
The cruelty of that nearly made me laugh.
Then she admitted something I never expected.
She encouraged me to date Luke.
Not openly.
But once she learned we had met, she did nothing to discourage it.
Why?
Guilt.
“If you became family, I thought I could make sure you were financially secure.”
I stared.
“You thought marriage to your son compensated me for my father's death?”
She covered her face.
“I know how monstrous that sounds.”
“It is.”
She nodded.
Then I understood the full horror.
Luke and I had believed we chose each other independently.
We had.
But Isabella had watched it happen knowing my father died partly because of her family's actions.
Then she built legal traps around me anyway.
Guilt didn't reform her.
It made her controlling.
“You knew Grant stole the land.”
“Yes.”
“Why allow it?”
“Because by then Grant had evidence tying me to Peter.”
Blackmail.
Again.
Everyone controlled everyone.
Then she gave me the file she'd protected for years.
Peter's original instructions from Grant.
Chemical dosage.
Timing.
Payment.
No ambiguity.
Grant had ordered an “acute hypertensive episode.”
Not death.
But reckless enough that death was foreseeable.
Criminal.
Isabella kept the paper because she feared Grant.
Now she handed it to me.
“Why now?”
“Because Luke told me if I lied one more time, he was done with me.”
I almost smiled.
Not because she deserved credit.
Because Luke had finally drawn a line.
Then Isabella said:
“There is one more thing.”
Of course.
“Vanessa's return wasn't entirely my idea.”
“Whose?”
“Luke's sister Amelia.”
I froze.
Amelia?
The one who warned me about the trust?
Isabella nodded.
“Amelia asked Vanessa to come home.”
Why?
May you like
“To break your marriage before Grant could use your pregnancy against you.”
My supposed ally had helped trigger the dinner that made me leave.
