Since Grace started to create her empire, she was well aware of what it costs to be on the top. A woman who built her empire with her hands in a world where people were not loyal – she believed she was invulnerable. That is so until Nathaniel, the man she trusted most, turns on her, and knocks the floor from under her feet. All her money is gone, her name is stained, and her closest friends and allies betray her furthering Grace's tragic end. But she isn't the type of woman to give up so easily. The story would have been different if instead of remaining silent and submissive she started on a brutal self-power campaign to get back everything that was taken from her. Thus, she puts herself on the line exploring Nathaniel's world and learning the secrets he never wanted anyone to find out for years. When Grace starts fighting back she gets to learn that it is not business that they are fighting for, but rather it is war between them. Nathaniel and his family, the lies he told, and the manipulations that were pulled become the playing field for their competition. Grace's mission is to investigate the origin of his business empire but in doing that Grace stands to lose everything, including the man she has feelings for. For once, the reality ironically mimics television and the readers get to observe an intriguing blend of enchanting power struggles, deceit, and vengeance astound Grace, and then the challenges of sustaining that resolution while preparing for the final battle. Will she bring the empire as built by Nathaniel down or will she be another victim of his vindictive appetite? The Final Move is jam-packed with betrayals, a love story, and bring-out-your-dead action that unfolds a chapter at a time, each elucidating the cost of H2O challenged by one woman who is willing to do anything to get it. Grace fought till the very bitter end and these are the things that make her life like a cameo.
Chapter 1 The End and the Beginning
Pain.
It was not the sort of pain Grace Callahan could locate, a stab, a throb, a twinge; it was a Thousand Pound Weight of anguish that ripped apart a woman from the soles of her feet to the roots of her scalp. Blood on her tongue gave a taste of iron and she could only breathe with her cheek resting against the cold concrete. This wasn't just pain. This was the crystal-sharp pain of betrayal.
She should have expected it to happen.
Some hours ago the boardroom was full of joyous laughter. Grace and Amanda had been the best of allies in the manner in which they had savored the concept of the merger which revolutionized Callahan Enterprises. For Grace, it was the fruits of years of grueling work, suffering, and aspirations.
But the laughter still ringing in her ears, Amanda's sharp voice interrupted it.
"You have been very reckless and useless Grace, I don't know why I keep you around anymore."
Those words have been a signal of her death, said with such hatred that what used to be a lovely and inviting smile of Amanda frozen and turned into a sinister grin. And Amanda wasn't alone. Beside her, gloating triumphantly and sneering was Grace's fiancé-Grace, whose whispered promises of protection she must have heard from him now seemed to enjoy her abject humiliation.
The crash had been intentional; it had been planned to eliminate every loose end that the existence of Amanda posed. The brakes failed. The car overturned along the edge of the mountain driveway. Behind them, the icy ravine aggressively slid towards her.
For a moment, she stared dreamily up at the roof, thinking that she had not hoped to wake once more. Not like this.
Initially, the warmth was an illusion, an ugly dream the body played on the mind before the final electricity. But when she opened her eyes again, she was neither met with shards of glass nor twisted metal. But now her eyes only saw the ceiling of her childhood room-a room she hadn't been in for ten years.
She recognized the jolt and sat upright. She scanned her surroundings, and the silk sheets slid to the floor. Everything was as it had been ten years ago: the crooked picture of myself younger, at the company launch, and the jade vase on the mantelpiece.
Grace stumbled breathlessly towards the mirror.
The woman staring back wasn't a battered, weary, ruined woman looking back at her. Her skin was smooth and radiant, her auburn hair without a hint of gray; this face was younger... Her trembling fingers stroked her cheek as if they didn't belong to her.
"She breathed out to say 'This can't be real.'"
But it was. It was wriggling in the marrow of her bones. It seemed somehow, impossibly that time had folded back on itself.
A tidal wave of betrayal memories, Amanda's smirk, and her fiancé's cruelty crashed over her. She had reopened the wound that hurt her soul, the helplessness, the soul-crushing loss of everything she had built. This time, though, Grace wasn't the woman she used to be.
She knew this time where the daggers would be coming from.
Her voice was hardening as she said softly, "This time I strike first."
Suddenly an iPhone buzzed on the nightstand jolting her out of the cloudy being of her thoughts. She picked it up, and her breath caught at the name flashing on the screen: Alexander Wolfe.
Alexander. She had the enigmatic investor she had tried to warn in her previous life. She'd told him he was too encased in shadows and paranoid to trust. Now though, she knew he hadn't been a threat. Nobody else had seen the truth but he had.
Without hesitation, she answered the call.
"We were bored, sitting around this small town filled with gossiping women surrounded by these shitty awful television signals and this frustrating landscape, trying to survive the end of it all," Alexander's voice was low, steady, and magnetic, a voice with secrets." "I have a proposition. Meet me tonight."
A smirk curled her lips, for the first time since waking.
The pieces were in motion. The game had begun.
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