Thank you so much to those of you have have stuck by and continue to read this story. Life is a little more settled now, and I will try and update more frequently. Also; rereading this so that I can update, I'm annoyed by the spelling/grammar mistakes and that the format isn't working. The boys finally get to hear Grace's story. Things will be slow burn romance wise, however. A word of warning, however, this is Grace's story and there will be unsavoury topics brought up.

The room was stuffy and suffocating. Grace felt like she could barely draw a breath and her legs had long since given up on working as Murphy held her upright. She needed to get out, they needed to escape and move on. Surely there was another town they could go, less populated than Boston. Boston had been a terrible idea, what had she been thinking?

"Ms Harrison." Smecker prompted again, signalling for Murphy to let her sink to the floor (which he reluctantly complied). He then crouched and looked deep into her eyes. "We can help you. There are no safer hands to be in than those of the MacManus boys, Rocco and myself. If you are in any trouble, we need to know. We can't help you if you don't tell us."

Ignoring the pain in her brittle bones, Grace pulled her knees to her chest and hugged her legs. Murphy joined her on the ground and placed his hand on her forearm, trying to ignore the stabbing pain in his chest when she flinched.
"You can trust us, Grace." He breathed, giving her arm a gentle and, he hoped, reassuring squeeze. Grace nodded, drawing in a shaky breath.

"I-I," She sighed, trying to focus of the gentle pressure of Murphy's hand on her arm and allowing it to calm her down. "I know. I wouldn't leave you alone with my children - or take your word that I can trust someone else to watch my children - if I didn't trust you both. It's hard opening up about this, however." Neither Murphy, Connor nor Paul said anything, feeling if they were to speak they would pull Grace from the confidence she seemed to have presently. "I wasn't always this way, you know?" It was a rhetorical question, of course they had no idea what she had been like. "Well, I was poor but not like this. I was brave and studious and I was working towards a degree. I didn't have any time for boys and marriage was the last thing on my mind. Then I met Patrick Butler and everything changed. He was sweet and gentlemanly and," She laughed nervously, realizing how ridiculous she had been at twenty. "Sinfully handsome. Enough so that I gave up everything the second he asked to marry me. Looking back on it, I think I was just craving family. My parents died while I was in high school and his family and their life seemed so glamorous and idyllic that I being a part of it almost seemed too good to be true. In hindsight, I suppose it was."

Grace was drawn from her trance by Connor shifting in the spot where he sat on the floor. She could tell that he was getting antsy, wanting answers and not - what he probably thought was - irrelevant backstory. Smiling gently, she reached out and petted his knee, not noticing the look Murphy gave his brother over her head. "Sorry, it's not irrelevant, I promise." Connor had the decency to blush guiltily. "Anyway, he didn't even last a year before things… before he began to change. He'd stay out to all hours, drinking and partying with his friends, but he never laid a hand on me until about six months into our marriage. He came home at about four in the morning, and I was waiting up for him. I'd been sick all week and, while he'd been at work, I had found out that I was pregnant and I was so…" Her breath hitched at the memory, sitting up in bed, waiting patiently for the man she had married. "So excited to share the news with him. To share our news. He made a little comment about how I was like an obedient dog waiting for her master - or something like that - it was stupid, but with all the hormones and waiting up till all hours, I was tired and cranky and I… I was so shocked that he could say something like that. It hurt to be compared to someone's pet. I told him that the comment had hurt. I… s-suppose that there was a bit of an edge to my voice that made him mad and he backhanded me across the face," She sat up a little straighter, still quick to defend her husband after all that he had done. "He apologised right away, of course, and I believed him." She could feel Murphy and Connor bristle at her sides but she continued, now that she had opened that can of worms, she couldn't stop the words from pouring out of her mouth.

"He didn't do it again until the twins were two. One of my friends from college was passing through town and wanted to catch up for coffee. My mother-in-law begged me to go out and enjoy myself. She said that she wanted to see her grandchildren and I honestly hadn't been out with anyone since Patrick and I were married, so I left promising that I would only be gone for an hour. Do you have children, Mister Smecker?" The detective shook his head and Grace smiled politely. "The problem with children is that you can't let them out of your sight for a second. My mother-in-law is a very vain woman and is distracted quite easily. It is my understanding that they were out on the front porch and somehow Jack got down to the duck pond and fell in, we almost lost him if their butler hadn't noticed him. When we got home from the hospital, Patrick was so mad. He flew into a rage, blaming me for abandoning our children. He said that it was my fault. I was so mad, I'd been so worried and had only gone out for an hour, so I snapped and fought back."
"That's my girl." Connor said under his breath, causing Grace to colour for a moment before shaking her head.

"It was a stupid idea, especially after the first night he hit me. He decided that I needed to be punished. He… um… he…" She let out a shuddering breath and let her gaze fall to the ground. Steeling her resolve, Grace looked up to meet Smecker's gaze. "He tied me face down to the bed, whipped me with an extension chord and then raped me." Murphy's grip on Grace's arm tightened almost painfully and Connor swore harshly. Paul never broke their gaze, nodding slightly, encouraging to go on. "Once that dam had burst, nothing held him back. On the outside, we continued living a life that made people jealous. I just wore clothing with higher necklines and longer hemlines. He never harmed me in places that couldn't be covered up. When we were alone…" Grace shook her head. "I could tolerate the beatings, the raping, the… infidelity, but…" She took a deep breath. "One night, he had a bunch of his friends over to our place. I was in the library and I had no idea that they were over until I was trying to get back to our room. I walked past his study and heard something that stopped me in my tracks. He'd been doing and dealing drugs, working closely with multiple mafia groups and," God, it hurt too much to say. How had she been so naive and stupid to not notice the horrible things the man she had married was getting into? Almost as if he was reading her mind, Paul spoke up.
"You not knowing what was going on does not make you stupid, Grace." She nodded.
"No, I… You're right. You can get him put away, this will help right?" Paul's face fell momentarily before regaining its' composure.

"If your husband is Patrick Butler, I am assuming that you are his dead wife, Grace Butler-nee-Parker." Grace nodded. "Then you must know that the testimony of a dead woman is not the most concrete of evidence. It may help us catch him out, but that is a big 'may', Ms Harrison. Do you understand?"

Grace nodded. Giving up her deepest, darkest of secrets wouldn't help put Patrick away at all. It wouldn't guarantee her children safety at all. There was a possibility that it could lead to his arrest, but there was no guarantee.
"He's running a human trafficking ring." Her gaze was unwavering. "Mostly women and ch-children but some men - mainly teenagers. The majority of them are being sold into prostitution and slavery but…" She clenched her fists. "There's a new," Grimacing, she tried to keep the foul taste of bile out of her mouth. "Hobby going around with the fabulously wealthy. It's like fox hunting but with people."