The scarred bodyguard from the restaurant stood there.

“Miss Bennett.”

“Is this the part where I get searched?”

His mouth twitched. “Already done.”

Grace frowned.

He stepped aside.

The inside of the house was colder than the rain outside. Marble floors. Dark wood. Oil paintings. Chandeliers glittering like frozen water. It was beautiful in the way museums were beautiful—expensive, silent, and impossible to relax in.

No toys in the hallway.

No family photos on the tables.

No shoes by the door.

Nothing that suggested a child lived there except the faint echo of a piano playing somewhere upstairs, one note struck again and again until it sounded less like music than warning.

The guard led Grace into a study lined with law books and locked cabinets.

Dominic stood by the fireplace, sleeves rolled to his forearms, a glass of scotch untouched beside him.

“You came,” he said.

“You made it hard not to.”

His gaze flicked to her face. “The money is yours whether you accept or refuse.”

“That doesn’t make this less suspicious.”

“No,” Dominic said. “It makes it honest.”

Grace waited.

He walked to his desk and picked up a folder.

“My daughter has driven away sixteen nannies, five tutors, two private therapists, a pediatric behavioral specialist, and a retired nun who claimed she had once calmed a prison riot.”

Grace almost smiled.

Dominic did not.

“She does not sleep. She breaks mirrors. She hides food. She bites when cornered. She has locked three caregivers in closets, cut the hair off one in her sleep, and told a federal prosecutor at a charity event that I bury people under highways.”

“Do you?”

His eyes sharpened.

Grace met them.

A long silence passed.

Finally, Dominic said, “You are either brave or careless.”

“I’m tired. People confuse the two.”

Something like amusement ghosted across his face and vanished.

“I want to hire you.”

“No.”

“You haven’t heard the terms.”

“I heard enough when you said ‘my daughter’ like she was a damaged import.”

Dominic’s face went still.

Grace felt the danger in the room change temperature.

But she thought of Sophie standing on that table, knife trembling in both hands, whispering about a man with mint.

So she kept going.

“She’s not broken. She’s scared. There’s a difference.”

Dominic set the folder down very carefully.

“You know nothing about my daughter.”

“I know she’s grieving. I know she thinks adults lie. I know she needed one person to get on her level and talk to her like she had a brain instead of treating her like a bomb.”

“She accused me of murdering her mother in public.”

“Did you?”

His bodyguard shifted near the door.

Dominic did not look away from Grace.

The answer was quiet.

Not offended.

Not theatrical.

Just exhausted.

Grace believed him, though she did not know why.

Dominic looked toward the fireplace, and the hard lines of his face changed. “My wife, Elena, died in a car fire two years ago. Sophie was in the back seat. She survived because Elena pushed her through a broken window before the gas tank went up.”

Grace’s throat tightened.

“Sophie remembers pieces,” he continued. “Smoke. Heat. Her mother screaming. Since then, every version of comfort has failed her.”

“What version did you try?”

He turned back.

Grace regretted the question before he answered, because the pain in his eyes was too naked for a man like him.

“Distance,” he said. “Control. Security. Money.”

“And none of that held her when thunder sounded like fire.”

Dominic’s jaw tightened.

The room settled into a different silence then. Not safe, but honest.

“What are the terms?” Grace asked.

“You live here. You become Sophie’s full-time caregiver. You will not answer to household staff. You will answer to me. Salary is thirty thousand dollars a month. Medical coverage. A private suite. Any debts you have will be cleared.”

Grace laughed once, without humor.

“That is not a job offer. That is a golden cage.”

“Yes.”

At least he did not insult her by denying it.

She crossed her arms. “I have conditions.”

Dominic raised an eyebrow.

Grace took one step closer. “No one puts hands on Sophie unless she is in immediate danger. No bodyguard drags her, grabs her, or corners her. No one calls her crazy, monster, beast, or any other word adults use when they’re too lazy to understand a child. Her room becomes hers, not a showroom. She gets choices. Real ones. And you eat dinner with her three nights a week.”

His expression darkened. “My schedule is not negotiable.”

“Then neither am I.”

“You need money.”

“Yes,” Grace said. “But she needs a father. That matters more.”

Dominic stared at her for so long that the fire cracked twice before he spoke.

“Three nights,” he said.

“And one afternoon outside the house every week. Park, museum, bookstore, anything normal.”

“My daughter has enemies.”

“Your daughter has a prison.”

He flinched.

It was small, but Grace saw it.

Finally, Dominic nodded once. “Done.”

Grace should have felt victory.

Instead, she felt the weight of what she had accepted.

A child’s grief.

A mob boss’s house.

A secret about mint.

And a family built around an absence no one knew how to name.

Her first morning began with screaming.

Not Sophie’s.

A housekeeper named Mrs. Donnelly came running down the east wing hallway with flour in her hair and pancake batter across her sweater.

“She put salt in the batter, hot sauce in the coffee, and a dead mouse in Mr. Hale’s chair!”

Grace sat up in bed, still half asleep.

“A real dead mouse?”

Mrs. Donnelly looked offended. “I did not inspect it for authenticity.”

Grace dressed quickly and found Sophie sitting in the breakfast room wearing a pale yellow dress, swinging her legs under the table with the expression of a general waiting for surrender.

Dominic’s chair had been pulled back. On its seat lay a small gray object.

Grace leaned closer.

Rubber.

She picked up the fake mouse and turned it over.

“Good craftsmanship.”

Sophie narrowed her eyes.

Mrs. Donnelly whispered, “Miss Bennett, don’t encourage—”

“I’m not encouraging,” Grace said. “I’m assessing. There’s a difference.”

Sophie crossed her arms. “Are you going to yell?”

“Are you going to tell my dad?”

“He probably already knows. There are cameras everywhere.”

Sophie’s eyes flicked to the ceiling.

Grace sat across from her. “But there will be consequences.”

Sophie’s chin lifted. “I don’t care.”

“That’s okay. Consequences don’t need your emotional approval.”

Mrs. Donnelly made a small choking sound.

Grace folded her hands. “You ruined breakfast. So you will help Mrs. Donnelly make a new one.”

“I don’t cook.”

“You do now.”

“I hate you.”

“Probably.”

Sophie shoved her chair back. “You can’t make me.”

Grace leaned back. “True. I can’t make you do anything. But I can sit here, and you can sit there, and breakfast can continue not existing until your stomach starts negotiating with your pride.”

Sophie glared.

Ten minutes passed.

Then twenty.

Dominic appeared in the doorway, dressed in a charcoal suit, phone in one hand. He stopped when he saw Grace sitting calmly across from his furious daughter while Mrs. Donnelly hovered near the kitchen.

“Why is no one eating?” he asked.