Chapter 7 - THE SECRET BEFORE THEIR MARRIAGEGrace had always known this moment might come.
She just never expected Eleanor’s arrest to trigger it.
Nathan closed the library doors.
“What happened in Germany?”
Grace sat down.
Jonathan looked between them.
“I should leave.”
“No,” Grace said. “You’re part of this.”
Nathan waited.
Grace clasped her hands.
“Thirteen years ago, I was a first lieutenant assigned to an intelligence unit supporting a joint NATO investigation.”
Nathan knew this much.
It was where she had served shortly before they met.
“What investigation?”
“Illegal export of restricted avionics technology.”
Nathan’s face changed.
“Whitmore Aerospace?”
Grace nodded.
Nathan stepped backward.
“You were investigating my family before we met?”
“Yes.”
Silence.
Jonathan swore softly.
Grace continued before Nathan could interpret it incorrectly.
“I didn’t know you.”
“But you knew my name.”
“Yes.”
“And then you married me.”
“Fourteen months later.”
Nathan stared at her.
“Was our relationship part of an investigation?”
“No.”
“How am I supposed to believe that?”
Grace flinched.
Fair question.
“The investigation ended before our first date.”
“Why?”
“Because someone shut it down.”
Jonathan understood first.
“Grandfather.”
Grace nodded.
“Our team traced export violations to an intermediary believed to be acting for Charles Whitmore. Before we could move further, the case was reclassified and transferred.”
Nathan laughed bitterly.
“Of course.”
Grace opened her bag.
“I kept one thing.”
She removed an old photograph.
Three men stood outside a German aircraft facility.
One was Charles Whitmore.
One was a foreign arms broker.
The third was younger.
But recognizable.
Jonathan stared.
“Eric.”
Grace nodded.
Eric Halden had been involved far longer than anyone believed.
Nathan took the photograph.
“You never told me.”
“I was legally prohibited.”
“For twelve years?”
“For most of them.”
“And after?”
Grace hesitated.
Nathan saw it.
“You could have told me.”
“Yes.”
“Why didn’t you?”
“Because by then Charles was dead. The company had changed leadership. You were rebuilding it. I believed the criminal network was gone.”
Nathan shook his head.
“You believed.”
“Yes.”
“And when you discovered it wasn’t?”
“I contacted federal investigators.”
“Instead of me.”
“Yes.”
Nathan paced.
Grace’s patience thinned.
“Do not stand there and turn this into an argument about marital honesty.”
He stopped.
“Why not?”
“Because six hours ago you introduced your mistress’s babies as your sons.”
Jonathan looked toward the ceiling.
“Maybe I should definitely leave.”
“No,” both said.
Jonathan sat again.
Nathan rubbed his temples.
“You’re right.”
Grace’s anger softened slightly.
“But you’re also allowed to be angry that I kept things from you.”
“I don’t know what I’m allowed to feel anymore.”
“That makes two of us.”
Jonathan interrupted.
“The phone call.”
Grace looked at him.
“What about it?”
“Who knew about Germany?”
“Very few people.”
“Names.”
Grace thought.
Her commanding officer.
Two investigators.
A German liaison.
Charles Whitmore.
Eric Halden.
And one other analyst.
“Peter Lang.”
Jonathan leaned forward.
“American?”
“Yes.”
“What happened to him?”
“He resigned.”
“When?”
“About a year after the case collapsed.”
Jonathan opened his laptop.
He searched.
Then stopped.
Peter Lang had become a private security consultant.
His largest client?
Whitmore Aerospace.
Nathan stared.
“My security director?”
Grace looked at him.
“You hired Peter Lang?”
“Six years ago.”
Neither had realized the connection.
Jonathan pulled up building access logs.
Peter had entered Whitmore Aerospace headquarters at 2:13 a.m. that morning.
After the federal search had begun.
Vale was called.
Teams returned immediately.
But Peter was gone.
So was one physical archive server.
Grace understood the danger.
“That server contains backup manufacturing specifications.”
Nathan nodded.
“Some classified.”
Jonathan looked grim.
“If Lang sells them—”
“He won’t sell them,” Grace said.
Nathan looked at her.
“How do you know?”
“Because he had access for years. If money was the goal, he could have done it anytime.”
“Then what does he want?”
Grace remembered the phone call.
“To control the story.”
Her phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
A photo arrived.
A warehouse.
Peter Lang stood beside a metal case.
Below it was a message.
You destroyed my life once. Come alone and I’ll tell you what your husband’s family did to yours.
Grace’s breath stopped.
Nathan saw her face.
“What?”
She showed him.
He read the final words twice.
“What does he mean—your family?”
Grace shook her head.
“My father died when I was nineteen.”
Nathan knew.
Colonel Samuel Carter.
Officially killed in an aviation training accident.
Jonathan stared at the photograph.
Then at Grace.
“Your father flew experimental aircraft.”
“Yes.”
“For who?”
Grace’s heart began pounding.
She already knew the answer.
“One of his programs was contracted through Whitmore Aerospace.”
Nathan sat down.
“No.”
Grace suddenly remembered something her mother told her years ago.
Samuel Carter had complained about defective flight-control components.
He had threatened to ground an entire fleet.
Three weeks later, his aircraft crashed.
Grace whispered:
“My father’s accident.”
Nathan stared.
“You think my grandfather—”
“I don’t know.”
But she intended to find out.
Nathan stood.
“You’re not meeting Lang alone.”
“He explicitly asked me to.”
“No.”
“This isn’t your decision.”
“It is if walking into a trap gets you killed.”
Grace’s eyes flashed.
“You lost the right to tell me what to do.”
Nathan absorbed the blow.
Then quietly said:
“Maybe as your husband.”
Grace stopped.
“But not as a person who still loves you.”
Silence.
Nathan stepped closer.
“You can hate me. Divorce me. Take every dime I own. But I will not stand here and politely watch you walk into danger because I made myself unworthy of asking you to stay.”
Grace stared at him.
For the first time since he brought Claire home, Nathan wasn’t asking for forgiveness.
He was asking to help.
Jonathan stood.
“We don’t send Grace alone.”
Grace looked at both brothers.
“No.”
Nathan frowned.
“No?”
May you like
Grace picked up her phone.
“We make Peter think I’m alone.”
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