Chapter 84: Grace’s Call
"Take your time," Liam said, leaning against the hallway wall, letting the quiet of the house settle around him. "I’m here."
Grace laughed, wet and unsteady, the sound of someone who’d been crying. "Give me a second." "Take as many as you need."
He heard her breathe, in and out,
"I accepted the position," she said finally. "Executive Director of Compliance. I signed the paperwork this afternoon."
He smiled, alone in the hallway, glad she couldn’t see how much that news actually meant to him. "How does it feel?"
"Terrifying." Another laugh, steadier this time. "I sat in that office and read every page of the contract twice, and I kept waiting for someone to walk in and tell me it was a mistake, that they’d meant to offer it to someone else." She paused. "No one did."Nobody was going to.
"I know that now. I don’t think I fully believed it until I actually signed my name." A breath, unsteady, then evening out. "The first thing we did this morning was reopen every whistleblower complaint that had been closed without review. Going back six years
. Some of those people still work there, Liam. They’ve been walking past his old office every day, wondering if anyone would ever look at what they filed. How many complaints?
"Eleven, just from the first pass. There may be more once people realize it’s safe to come forward." Her voice caught slightly. "The compliance department doesn’t report to the CEO anymore either. The board changed that this morning, permanently, written into the bylaws so no future executive can undo it with a memo."
"That’s not a small thing."No. It isn’t." A pause, the sound of her shifting somewhere on her end, a chair creaking faintly. "Liam, I have an office on the twenty-eighth floor. I have a team. Real authority, the kind nobody can just take away from me on a whim anymore.
Do you understand what that means, after everything?"I think I understand." He laughed quietly, the sound low in the empty hallway.
"You understand all of it. You’re the only reason any of this" Grace.
"No. Let me finish." Her voice steadied. "I keep trying to find a way to thank you that doesn’t sound small next to what you actually did, and I can’t find the words, so I’m just going to say it badly instead. Thank you. For not letting me stay quiet. For not letting me believe I deserved what he did to me."
Liam stayed quiet for a moment, the weight of it settling somewhere behind his ribs, harder to hold than he expected. You did the hard part," he said finally. "I just made sure it wasn’t wasted."
"Don’t do that." Do what? "Make yourself smaller than you were in this." I watched you build a case against a man who scared everyone else in that building into silence, and you did it without ever once making it about yourself.
I don’t know many people who could do that. I don’t think I could have, if the roles were reversed. You’re stronger than you think you are."
"I’m learning to be." A pause, softer now, the energy in her voice shifting into something more careful. "Damien blocked my number."
The shift caught him off guard, the joy from a moment ago tempered suddenly by something rawer underneath it. He straightened slightly against the wall. "I’m sorry."
"I expected it. Doesn’t make it hurt less." She exhaled slowly, "I keep telling myself it’s not permanent. That he needs time, and that time is something I finally have plenty of, now that the rest of this is settled. I have to believe that, or none of it means anything."
"He’ll come around." Liam said it carefully, not wanting to promise something he couldn’t guarantee. "Maybe not tomorrow. But people find their way back, when the person waiting for them is worth coming back to."
"I hope you’re right."
"I usually am." That earned a real laugh this time, brighter, some of the earlier weight in her voice lifting for a moment.
"I should let you go. It’s late, and I have a very early meeting tomorrow with people who now technically report to me, which is a sentence I never thought I’d say out loud."
"Get some sleep. You earned it."
"I will." A pause. "Liam."
"Yeah." Whatever happens next, whatever this is that you’re apparently caught up in now, cameras and headlines and all of it, I hope some of it is good to you too. You’ve spent so long making sure it was good for everyone else."
He didn’t have an easy answer for that, not one that wouldn’t require explaining a system, a villa, a number in an account she didn’t know existed. He looked down the hallway toward the kitchen light, still glowing faintly around the doorframe.
"I’ll manage," he said instead.
"You always do." Her voice softened one last time. "Goodnight, Liam. And thank you. Really."
"Goodnight, Grace." Take care of yourself
The line went quiet, and he stood there a moment longer in the hallway, phone still against his ear, listening to his mother humming in the kitchen, the faint clink of a cup being set down somewhere behind the wall.
The house felt still around him in a way it hadn’t in weeks, the ordinary sounds of it
water running briefly, a cabinet closing settling over him like something he’d almost forgotten how to notice.
He let himself, finally, feel something close to peace, the whole day settling around him like a held breath finally released. For a moment he just stood there, phone still warm against his palm, the hallway dim and quiet, nothing demanding anything of him.
His phone vibrated again before he’d even reached his room, the screen lighting up against his palm, a name lighting up the screen he hadn’t seen in weeks.
Victoria Hayes.
He has been expecting her chat but not this soon