Chapter 4: The Name on the Pad
The name was Renata Voss.
Grace had not heard it spoken aloud in four years.
Seeing it written in Garrett's careful block letters, circled twice in blue ink, felt like finding a crack in a wall she had believed was solid.
"How certain are you?" she asked.
"Garrett traced the comment account.
It was created three weeks ago.
One post.
The profile photo is a stock image." Dominic turned the legal pad back toward himself.
"The IP address resolves to a building in Fells Point.
Renata Voss leases an office on the fourth floor."
"That's not proof."
"No.
It's a beginning."
Grace stood and moved to the window.
The harbor was dark beyond the tree line.
A light blinked slowly on a distant tower.
Renata Voss had been Dominic's attorney for seven years before Grace entered the picture.
She had managed contracts, handled disputes, and traveled with him to meetings in three countries.
She had also, according to two people who worked closely with Dominic at the time, expected something more than a professional relationship.
Dominic had never encouraged it.
But he had also never addressed it directly, which Grace had always thought was the one blind spot in an otherwise precise man.
When he married Grace quietly on the Eastern Shore, Renata had learned about it the same way everyone else did — after the fact, through a brief announcement sent by Dominic's assistant.
She had resigned the following week.
"She's been gone four years," Grace said.
"Why now?"
"She resurfaced six months ago.
New firm.
She's been building a client list." He paused.
"Two of her new clients are in direct competition with my freight operations.
One of them has been trying to break my terminal contracts for eighteen months."
Grace turned from the window.
"She's working against you professionally and she went after me personally."
"That's how it appears."
"Appears," she repeated.
"Or is."
Dominic met her eyes.
"Is."
She came back to the table and sat down.
"What does she want?"
"Garrett thinks she wants to destabilize the terminal contracts by damaging my reputation.
A story about my wife being humiliated on a live stream, going viral, the comments, the mockery — it creates a narrative.
Dominic Rainer can't protect his own family.
His operations are vulnerable.
His partners should reconsider."
"That's a long way around."
"She's patient.
She always was."
Grace was quiet for a moment.
"She used Sloane Mercer as a tool."
"Sloane didn't need much encouragement.
The comment pointed her toward you.
Sloane did the rest herself."
"Does Sloane know who she was dealing with?"
"I don't think so.
I think she received a tip about a waitress with an interesting background and decided it would make good content." He set down the legal pad.
"Sloane is careless and cruel.
Renata is neither."
Grace looked at the name again.
"So we have two separate problems."
"We have one problem with two faces."
Outside, the dark sedan was still parked by the gate.
Grace glanced at it through the window.
"Is that Garrett's man?"
"Yes."
"You put a guard on the house."
"I put a guard on the gate," Dominic said.
"There's a difference."
"Not to me there isn't." She looked at him.
"Dominic.
I told you I didn't want —"
"I know what you told me." His voice was even.
"Someone targeted you deliberately, used a stranger to humiliate you in front of sixty thousand people, and is now using that footage to damage my business.
The guard stays until I understand the full scope of what Renata is doing."
Grace held his gaze for a long moment.
She wanted to argue.
She had built her entire married life on the principle that she would not become a protected object, a symbol, a wife kept behind glass.
But the name on that legal pad sat between them like a stone.
"Fine," she said.
"The gate.
Not the door."
"Agreed."
She picked up her phone.
The live stream archive was still accessible.
Sixty-seven thousand views now.
The comment Garrett had flagged was still there, buried under hundreds of others, but visible if you knew to look.
*She used to work the overnight shift at a diner on the Inner Harbor.
Nobody special.
Just a waitress who got lucky.*
Fourteen hundred and sixty likes.
Grace set the phone face-down on the table.
"I want to talk to Renata myself," she said.
Dominic didn't move.
"That's not a good idea."
"I didn't ask if it was a good idea."
"Grace —"
"She came after me," Grace said quietly.
"Not your terminals.
Not your contracts.
Me.
She used a twenty-three-year-old girl with a phone to pour a drink on me in front of my coworkers and sixty thousand strangers." She looked at him.
"I will not sit in this house while you handle it.
That was never the agreement."
A long silence.
"What do you want to say to her?" Dominic asked.
"I want her to look at me," Grace said, "and understand exactly what she miscalculated."
Dominic studied her face.
Then he picked up his phone and typed a short message to Garrett.
The reply came in under a minute.
He turned the screen toward Grace.
*Renata Voss.
Thursday.
Lunch.
She'll be at Harborview Grille.
Alone.*
Grace read it twice.
"How does Garrett know her schedule?"
"He's thorough."
"That's not an answer."
"No," Dominic said.
"It isn't."
Grace looked at the name on the legal pad one more time.
Then she stood, folded the cloth she'd used earlier, and set it neatly on the counter.
"Thursday," she said.
She walked upstairs without looking back.
Dominic sat alone at the kitchen table.
He looked at Garrett's reply for a long moment.
May you like
Then he typed three words back.
*Watch her too.*
