Frozen Vengeance: The Last Meal

Chapter 17

Chapter 17: Grace's Truth

Grace was already seated when Rafi arrived at the coffee shop, a cup going cold in front of her, untouched. She didn't look up until he sat down across from her, and when she finally did, her eyes went straight to the folded photograph in his hand before either of them said a word.

"You know," she said quietly.

"I know something." Rafi slid the photograph across the table. "I want to know everything."

Grace stared at it for a long moment, and Rafi watched her hands — steady through every transaction of the last two weeks, through millions of pesos moved without hesitation — begin, very slightly, to shake.

"Three weeks ago," she said. "Two men. Very polite. The kind of polite that's worse than a threat, because you understand immediately that the threat is only being withheld as a courtesy, and could be reinstated at any moment they choose."

"What did they want."

"Numbers. Where your money was moving. How much, how fast, which channels." Her jaw tightened. "They knew things about me, Mr. Villaroman. My mother's clinic bills, down to the peso. My brother's visa application — one denial away from four years of waiting collapsing into nothing."

"And you gave it to them."

"I gave them numbers vague enough to be useless." Her voice cracked slightly on the last word. "I never told them which investments. Which properties. I told myself that made it survivable."

"But not enough to tell me."

"No." Grace looked down at her hands, folded tight around the cold coffee cup. "I was afraid of exactly this conversation. Of you looking at me exactly like you're looking at me right now. I let that fear cost you weeks you didn't need to lose."

"How many weeks, exactly."

"Since your first large transfer went through. So — almost from the beginning."

"How many times did they contact you after that first meeting."

"Three more times. Always in public, always somewhere crowded enough that I couldn't refuse without making a scene." Grace's fingers traced the rim of her cup. "The second time, they asked about the property purchase before it was even public knowledge. I hadn't told anyone outside the bank. I still don't know how they knew."

"Did you ask them."

"I did, actually." A humorless smile crossed her face. "The one who does the talking just smiled and said knowing things was the entire point of who they worked for."

"Describe him."

"Fifties, maybe. Well-dressed, unremarkable in every way that would help anyone identify him later — that felt deliberate, now that I think about it. He had a habit of tapping two fingers on the table whenever he was about to say something he considered important."

"And the other one."

"Younger. Never spoke at all, as far as I can remember. Just watched." Grace shivered slightly despite the warmth of the coffee shop. "That one frightened me more, honestly. The silent ones always do."

Rafi studied her, weighing nine years of practice reading liars who smiled while they emptied his accounts against two weeks of watching Grace handle his money with more visible care than his ex-wife's entire family had ever shown him.

"Did they give you a name," he asked. "Anything at all."

"No names. They were careful about that." She hesitated, fingers tightening around the cup. "But one of them said something strange, near the end of our last meeting. He said, 'Tell your client the boy's mother already knows more than she's saying.'"

Rafi went very still. "What boy."

"I don't know. I assumed it meant nothing to me, so I didn't ask further — I was too busy trying not to throw up in the parking garage afterward, if I'm honest."

"Grace. Think. Did they say anything else. A woman's name, a wife, an ex-wife."

"They mentioned a name once." Her eyes searched his face, reading the shift in it. "Isabel. I assumed it was a business partner, or possibly your lawyer. Should I not have let it go?"

Rafi thought of Miguel asking Elena about merienda while Marco stood in his own wedding barong, of nine years of a marriage that had apparently been observed by strangers long before he'd ever understood why, and felt something cold settle low in his stomach.

"You should have called me the moment you heard that name," he said, though there was no real heat left in it, only exhaustion. "But I understand why you didn't."

"What happens now."

"Now you tell me everything they've ever asked, in the exact order it happened, from the very first meeting." Rafi leaned forward. "And the next time anyone threatens your family to get to mine, Grace, you call me before you call anyone else. I have resources now that can make their leverage disappear faster than you think possible."

"Why would you help me," she asked, genuinely bewildered. "After I kept this from you for three weeks."

Rafi considered that honestly before answering. "Because I spent nine years surrounded by people who used my trust against me without a flicker of guilt on their faces. Not one of them ever looked as frightened as you look right now, telling me the truth. That tells me something worth trusting."

Something in Grace's shoulders finally loosened.

"There's one more thing," she said, quieter now. "The last time we met, one of them mentioned a number. Ninety days. I didn't understand what it meant until I watched your face just now."

Rafi's blood went cold.

"They know about the countdown," he said, more to himself than to her.

"What countdown, Mr. Villaroman?"

He didn't answer. He was already pulling out his phone, already scrolling to Antonio's number, already understanding with sick clarity that whatever Bel actually knew — whatever she'd let slip to whoever came asking, deliberately or otherwise — his ex-wife had just become a far more dangerous variable than he'd allowed himself to account for.

"I have to go," he said, standing. "Thank you, Grace. Truly."

"Mr. Villaroman—"

He was already moving toward the door, phone pressed to his ear, Antonio's line ringing once, twice, three times before it finally connected.

"Rafael," Antonio's voice came through, alert despite the hour. "This is early, even for you."

"They know about the ninety-one days," Rafi said, stepping out onto the sidewalk, the ordinary noise of Ortigas traffic suddenly feeling very far away. "The people watching my accounts. Grace's contacts mentioned a countdown. Ninety days, specifically — close enough that it can't be coincidence."

Silence on the line, longer than Rafi liked.

"That's not something they could have learned from watching your bank transfers," Antonio said finally, quiet and careful. "That's something only someone who's spoken to you directly, or to someone very close to you, could possibly know."

"I haven't told anyone but you."

"Then we have a problem considerably larger than a banker under duress," Antonio said. "Rafael, I need you to think carefully. Is there anyone else who might have overheard you counting down. A slip of the tongue. A conversation you thought was private."

Rafi's mind went, unwillingly, to a driveway three weeks ago, to Bel standing frozen at the edge of it while her parents unraveled everything she'd spent years hiding, to his own voice saying ninety days left out loud to no one in particular as he'd walked back into his empty house afterward.

"Maybe," he admitted. "I need to talk to you in person. Tonight, if you can."

"I can," Antonio said. "Where."