Please Me Daddy (Gracie) novel Chapter 221

tilted her head slightly.

“How exhausting,” she said lightly. “She really didn’t know how to keep her mouth shut, did she?”

She didn’t even spare Katherine’s body a second glance, as if it were nothing more than garbage on the floor. Her eyes shifted to me, and she smiled.

“I told you we would meet again, Grace.”

She stepped fully into the dim light.

My heart stopped.

Impossible. It couldn’t be her. 2

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I don’t have much time

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I don’t have much time

Apollo

The sound of the door opening echoed through the empty house, the metal hinges creaking sharply against the silence, and I did not move a single inch as the footsteps paused just outside the room.

A second later, the door opened fully.

The man standing at the entrance reached toward the wall and flipped the switch, and the white light flooded the room in an instant.

The moment the light came on, his body froze.

I was sitting in the chair at the center of the room with my legs crossed, leaning back casually as if I had been waiting for a scheduled meeting. My hands rested calmly on the armrests, my posture relaxed, but my eyes were fixed on him, dark, cold, and stripped of any warmth.

He flinched the second our gazes met. His fingers tightened around the doorknob as if he was debating whether to slam the door shut and run.

He almost did.

“You know, you shouldn’t bother doing that.”

His shoulders stiffened.

“No matter where you run or where you hide, I will find you,” I continued, my tone lowering slightly as I leaned forward. “And I am not in the mood to play hide and seek with you tonight.”

I uncrossed my legs slowly and rested my elbows on my knees, my gaze never leaving him. “Because I am barely controlling my anger right now. If you make even the slightest mistake, I will not hesitate to get rid of you. You know me well enough to know that when I say something, I mean it.”

A brief pause settled between us before I finished, “Right, Austin?” 2

His hand, still gripping the doorknob, trembled visibly.

For a moment, he stood there with his back half–turned to me, as if weighing his options, but then he exhaled slowly and let the door close behind him. He turned around fully and faced me, forcing a composed expression onto his face even though the

tension in his jaw betrayed him.

He bowed slightly. “Mr. Reed.”

“I expected you would come here eventually,” he admitted, his tone careful. “But I didn’t expect you to come this quickly. My body reacted before my mind did. I apologize. I should have been more cautious.”

I said nothing. I simply watched him.

After a few seconds of silence, he gave a faint smile that did not reach his eyes. “All this time, I thought I meant nothing to you. But I suppose I must have meant something, because if it had been anyone else, you would have killed them the moment you found out.”

My jaw ticked at his words, and I felt the familiar surge of restrained violence settle heavily in my chest.

“You’re right,” I said. “You mean something to me.”

His expression shifted slightly at that.

“You took care of me when I was young, you stood by me when I thought I had lost everything. You tried to help me grow into someone stronger. Those are the reasons you are still breathing. But there is always a limit to my kindness,” I added, standing

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up slowly from the chair. The scrape of the legs against the concrete floor echoed sharply in the silence. “And even if you mean something to me, once you cross a line you should never cross, I will not hesitate.”

I took a step toward him.

“That is exactly what you just did.”

Austin’s fingers twitched slightly at his sides, but he did not interrupt me.

I walked closer, my hands sliding casually into my pockets, my face calm even though the storm inside me was violent and barely contained.

“I know you betrayed me,” I said flatly. “I don’t know why yet. I don’t know what you were promised or what you were threatened with. But I know you’re working with the killer.”

His silence was answer enough.

“At first, I couldn’t believe it. I didn’t want to believe it. I am not an emotional person. I don’t cling to attachments. But this time, I didn’t want to accept that you would go that far. That you would help someone who murders innocent people.”

I took another step forward until only a short distance separated us.

“I may be cold, but I have never harmed innocent people for pleasure or gain. I built everything I have without spilling unnecessary blood. But you helped someone hurt the innocent. Tell me, Austin, how are you any different from the monsters we both despise?”

Austin’s face drained of color the moment my words settled in the air between us, and he instinctively staggered a step backward. His head shook repeatedly, almost desperately, and his voice cracked as he said, “I—I had no choice. Believe me, I had no choice.”

I took one final step forward until there was no space left between us, and he had no room to retreat. I could see the fear in his eyes clearly now, and for the first time since I walked into this place, I allowed him to see that mine held something far worse

than anger.

“Everyone has a choice, and right now, I do not care what yours were.”

I leaned slightly closer, my gaze locking onto his. “I came here for one thing, and you had better answer me if you want to have the choice to continue breathing.”

My jaw tightened.

“Where is my wife?” I demanded. “Where is Grace?”

Years ago, when the first pieces of this twisted puzzle began falling into place, I uncovered something I had desperately wished was not true. Austin had been one of the masterminds operating behind the scenes. He was helping the killer. At first, I refused to believe it. I do not trust many people in this world, but Austin was different. He was the one person I had trusted without reservation.

He had been there since I was a child.

After my mother died and my father drowned himself in grief, Austin was the one who stayed by my side. He guided me, protected me, taught me how to think three steps ahead. When I thought I had lost everything, he made sure I did not break completely.

So when the evidence first pointed toward him, I rejected it. But coincidence after coincidence piled up until even denial became an insult to my intelligence. He was the one who introduced that celebrity to become the face of our company. He was the one who discovered that the killer happened to be in Paris at a critical time. Every trail that looked accidental somehow circled back to him.

I am not a fool.

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Even though I trusted him, even though I wanted it to be a lie, I knew the truth.

Austin had betrayed me.

But instead of arresting him and forcing a confession out of him, I kept him close. Keep your friends close and your enernies closer. If I had exposed him too early, the real mastermind would have cut ties instantly and disappeared. She was intelligent, calculating, and cautious. I could not afford to lose my only lead.

So, I watched.

I have always been patient. Patience is what allowed me to build everything I have. But now they had mistaken my patience for weakness. They had mistaken my silence for ignorance. They had grown bold enough to lay their hands on what is mine.

And that is something I do not forgive.

If they were foolish enough to exploit the one merciful side I allowed myself to have, then perhaps it was time to remind them why my name alone was enough to make powerful men tremble.

I tilted my head slightly, my expression calm in a way that made even hardened criminals uneasy.

“Who is it?” I asked. “Who is she? And where are you keeping Grace?”

Austin looked at me for a long moment after my question, and instead of answering immediately, a strange, almost peaceful smile slowly formed on his face as if he had already accepted something I had not yet seen.

“I’m happy,” he said quietly, “that I lived long enough to witness someone change your life, Mr. Reed.”

My expression did not change, but something in my chest tightened slightly at the tone he used.

“You’re really like a son to me, I know I don’t deserve your trust anymore. I know I’ve thrown that away with my own hands. But just know that everything good I ever wished for you was real. I genuinely wanted you to be happy. I genuinely cared.”

The words barely left his mouth before his body jerked slightly, and then he spat out blood.

It splattered onto the concrete floor between us in a dark stain.

For a second, my mind refused to process what I was seeing.

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