Grayson spends the night decod­ing his father Sheffield Grayson’s encrypt­ed jour­nal, metic­u­lous­ly tran­scrib­ing the con­tents into his own note­book. Ini­tial­ly, the jour­nal appears to be a ledger doc­u­ment­ing embez­zled funds, pro­vid­ing enough detail for author­i­ties to trace the ille­gal trans­ac­tions. How­ev­er, as Grayson pro­gress­es, the entries shift from finan­cial records to per­son­al con­fes­sions, reveal­ing Sheffield­’s sim­mer­ing anger rather than guilt. The tone grows increas­ing­ly volatile, hint­ing at deep­er fam­i­ly con­flicts and unre­solved vendet­tas.

The jour­nal entries expose Sheffield­’s rage fol­low­ing his moth­er-in-law Cora’s funer­al, where his wife Aca­cia learns dam­ag­ing secrets from a man named Trow­bridge. Sheffield resents Aca­ci­a’s com­pas­sion and inter­fer­ence, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing a mys­te­ri­ous “son” con­nect­ed to the Hawthorne fam­i­ly. His bit­ter­ness inten­si­fies after Tobias Hawthorne’s death, as he fix­ates on Avery, the unex­pect­ed heir to the Hawthorne for­tune. Sheffield becomes obsessed with prov­ing her con­nec­tion to Toby Hawthorne, whom he believes is still alive and deserv­ing of ret­ri­bu­tion.

Grayson uncov­ers his father’s esca­lat­ing vendet­ta, includ­ing his deci­sion to spy on Avery in hopes she would lead him to Toby. Sheffield­’s entries grow more unhinged, cul­mi­nat­ing in a chill­ing admis­sion: he plans to mur­der Toby, believ­ing he can evade con­se­quences since Toby is legal­ly dead. The jour­nal also reveals Sheffield orches­trat­ed the pub­lic con­fronta­tion dur­ing Grayson and Avery’s inter­view, aim­ing to desta­bi­lize the Hawthornes. Grayson process­es these rev­e­la­tions with­out pause, though the weight of his father’s mal­ice is unde­ni­able.

The chap­ter con­cludes with Grayson recall­ing his impul­sive kiss with Avery dur­ing the inter­view, a moment that shat­tered his usu­al con­trol. This mem­o­ry inter­twines with the jour­nal’s rev­e­la­tions, empha­siz­ing the cycli­cal nature of chaos in his life. As he decodes the final entries, Grayson con­fronts the unset­tling truth: his father’s vendet­ta against the Hawthornes is deeply per­son­al, and Avery is now entan­gled in its dan­ger­ous lega­cy.