Page 61 of The Tower (Billionaire Brothers Grimm #1)

Forty-Two

Broken

I wake to the sensation of fingers gently combing through my hair. Liam is propped on one elbow, watching me with an expression that makes my breath catch—tender, possessive, utterly unguarded.

“Creepy,” I murmur, smiling to soften the word. “Watching me sleep.”

A shadow crosses his face, and I remember how I’d gone off on him last night about watching me in Elysium.

I grimace. “Sorry. That’s meant to be joke. Apparently, a bad one.”

The tension eases from his expression. “We’re going to need to work on your comedic timing,” he says, pressing a kiss to my palm.

“Among other things,” I agree. “Starting with breakfast. I’m starving.”

He chuckles. “That, I can definitely help with.”

As he rises from the bed, unabashedly naked and magnificent in the morning light, his phone chimes from the pocket of his discarded pants.

He retrieves it, glances at the screen, and his entire demeanor changes in an instant—shoulders tensing, jaw tightening, the relaxed lover replaced by the strategic warrior.

“What is it?”

He frowns, and I’m certain he’s debating whether to share whatever news he’s received.

A chill cuts through me. “Dammit, Grimm. You promised. No more lies. No more secrets.”

“I know.” He sighs, then sits on the edge of the bed, the phone still in his hand. “Leo just texted. Your father is back in New York.”

The words hit me like a physical blow, stealing the breath from my lungs. Victor. Back. After weeks of searching, of warrants and investigations, he’s resurfaced—deliberately, no doubt. My father never does anything without calculation.

“How does Leo know?” I manage, my voice steadier than I expected.

“Sources in the NYPD.”

I start to ask why Leo would have cop connections, but that’s really not the point. “Does the NYPD have him in custody?”

“Not yet. But he’s been seen in the financial district. And he’s furious about the Reed Cosmetics situation.”

Of course, he is. He never intended to let the company pass to me. And now I legally control my mother’s legacy, the empire he’s spent years claiming as his own.

“He’ll come after me,” I say, the certainty bone deep. “Try to force me to sign over control.”

Liam’s expression hardens, a glimpse of the danger that lives inside this man I’ve fallen for. “Let him try.”

“Grimm—”

“He won’t touch you,” he says, voice low and fierce. “Not again. Not ever.”

The vehemence in his tone should be frightening. Instead, I find it oddly comforting—this absolute certainty that he will stand between me and harm, whatever form it takes.

“We need a plan,” I say, switching from fear to strategy. “There are arrest warrants out for him. If he’s come back without his attorneys, then this isn’t about trying to regain control of the company. It’s about me.”

Liam nods, and from his expression, I can see that he got to that conclusion before I did.

“I’m moving you to Grimm Tower. Ruby, too, if she wants. She can stay with you. I don’t want you here. He knows his way around this tower too well, and a man like him would have escape routes. For all we know, he can get up to your suite from the sewer.”

I look around the apartment, suddenly afraid my father might burst out from under the kitchen sink. But Liam’s not wrong. “Okay,” I say. In part because I’m scared, and in part because he’s right.

Mostly because I know this is about my safety and he won’t take no for an answer.

“What are you going to do?”

“Find him,” he says. “Leo’s already digging, trying to find out what Victor’s planning.”

I nod, strangely calm as a storm builds inside me—rage mingled with an odd anticipation. All my life, I’ve been at my father’s mercy, subject to his control, his manipulation, his vision of who I should be.

Not anymore.

“I want to face him,” I say, the words surprising even me. “Not hide. Not run. When the time comes, I want to look him in the eye and show him exactly who I’ve become. And I want the satisfaction of giving the evidence that puts that prick behind bars.”

Liam studies me, something like pride flickering in his expression. “Are you sure?”

I nod, certainty growing with each passing moment. “More than sure. This ends when I say it ends. On my terms, not his.”

“All right.” He reaches for me, pulling me close, his lips pressing against my forehead in a gesture both tender and fierce. “I’ve got your back.”

I sigh as I wrap my arms around him. Whatever my father is planning, I won’t face it alone. I have Liam beside me, Ruby behind me, and most importantly, a newfound confidence in my own strength.

Let Victor Reed come. The princess is no longer locked in the tower—she’s standing on the battlements, ready for war.

The next few days pass in a strange limbo as we wait for my father’s inevitable move.

Liam’s suite at Grimm Tower has become command central, and he spends hours in his study with Leo as they organize the teams that are tracking my father.

In my spare time, I work on Elysium, trying to build it out in a commercially viable way.

But most of my attention is on Reed Cosmetics, with Ruby and me working long hours to review operations, solidify my position with the board, and begin laying groundwork for the rebranding I envision.

“I’ve been going through the corporate archives,” Ruby tells me one afternoon, spreading photographs across my desk. “Look at these—early campaigns from when Lydia was still alive.”

The images show a strikingly different aesthetic than the princess-perfect strategy my father later developed. These are vibrant and empowering—women of all colors and ages, portrayed with strength and character rather than porcelain perfection.

“This was her vision,” I say softly, touching one particularly powerful image. “Not the sugary, sanitized version my father created.”

“I can’t believe these were just shoved in a box in the basement archives.”

I shoot her a sideways glance. “Clearly, you haven’t met my father.”

“Good point.”

We share a grin. It’s nice to have her at my side again. And now that she’s officially the Vice-President in Charge of Marketing, she’s no longer part of the Reed Tower staff.

“I talked to Vanessa Grady,” I tell her, referring to a former board member who, I learned, was once my mother’s best friend. “She told me all sorts of stories about me. Apparently, she was Lydia’s best friend. She said I called her Auntie Van.”

Ruby leans back in her chair. “Do you remember her?”

“I didn’t before, but once she told me that, I started to.

I thought maybe it was a fake memory—you know, wishful thinking.

Me and my mom and Auntie Van at a park, the two of them taking turns pushing me on a swing, and a picnic with a watermelon.

And the three of us having a contest to see who could spit the seeds the farthest.”

“Who won?”

“Me,” I say. “But I think they let me cheat.” I smile, savoring the memory. “I called her when it came back—it was still fuzzy—and she said it was true. Every moment.” I grin. “But she wouldn’t confirm tossing the contest so I could win.”

Ruby reaches for my hand and squeezes it. “The fucker tried to take that from you.”

“And I’m going to make sure he rots in prison, spending every day left in his miserable life thinking about the harm he did to Lydia, to me, to god knows who else.

Honestly, I don’t think I’ve looked forward to anything more than testifying against him in court.

Hopefully sooner rather than later. Seriously.

Just thinking about it is better than ice cream. ”

“Liam and Leo will find him,” she says. “And I’ll be right there beside you when they lock the prison gate behind him.”

I trace my fingertip over one of the pictures. “He took something important from the world when he killed her. Auntie Van said she was revolutionary for her time. She believed beauty products should enhance confidence, not prop up insecurity.”

“I love that,” Ruby says.

“Me, too.”

It’s a concept I’m determined to reclaim and get out into the market, and each day, Ruby and I work to tweak my mother’s stillborn campaign in a way that makes it both hers and mine.

It’s melancholy work, but I love every minute, because each new idea brings me closer to the mother I never had the chance to know.

Nights bring a different kind of intimacy—a new tenderness between me and Liam that wasn’t possible when secrets still lingered between us.

“I never asked,” he says one night as we lie tangled together in the darkness, “but what made you decide to forgive me? To give us another chance?”

The question catches me off guard, though I’ve asked myself the same thing many times. “Ruby, partly,” I admit. “She reminded me that you owned your mistakes. That you didn’t make excuses.”

His arm tightens around me. “Remind me to thank her.”

“Mostly, it was you. Showing up every day. Owning what you did and understanding that it wasn’t just the deception of sliding into Killiam, but that you stole something vital from me.” I smile at him. “But you get it now.”

“I do,” he says. He’s silent for a long moment, his fingers tracing idle patterns on my skin. “I love you, Princess,” he whispers.

“I love you, too, Grimm.”

We’re asleep when the call comes at 3:42 a.m.—Liam’s phone vibrating on the nightstand, casting eerie blue light across the ceiling. He answers immediately, fully alert despite the hour.

“When?” he asks after a moment of listening, his body going rigid beside me. “Are you sure? Keep monitoring. I’m on my way.”

“What is it?” I ask, sitting up in bed as he pulls on clothes.

“We’ve got eyes on Victor.” His voice is tight. Urgent. “And he’s not alone. Bane’s with him, along with what looks like a private security detail.”

My heart pounds against my ribs. “Where are they going?”

“That’s what I need to find out.” He straps on a shoulder holster, checking a gun before sliding it into place—a stark reminder of the dangerous man beneath the lover I’ve come to know.