MasukI was standing at the floor-to-ceiling windows on the top floor of the Connolly Group headquarters. Sixty-eighth floor. The entire New York skyline lay beneath me, thousands of pinprick lights scattered across the dark like a board game someone had knocked over, and I was the only one who knew how to put it back.Dad walked over with a mug of warm milk and set it beside me. "Still hot. Wait a couple minutes." His voice was careful, the way you'd talk to someone fragile, which was ridiculous given that this was the man who'd spent decades crushing competitors, and yet here he was, tiptoeing.I lifted my right hand and looked at my wrist. The wound had healed completely. The new skin was soft and pale pink, with a faint scar ring remaining around the edge. Dad had mentioned laser treatments to remove it, and I'd said no. Leave it. It reminded me who was worth trusting and who wasn't, and that mattered."Did you read the CFO's report?" Dad asked, eyes on the massive display wall behind us
One month later.The Harrison Group's total bankruptcy and liquidation was front-page news for three days running. The Harrison patriarch had a heart attack from the shock and still hadn't come out of the ICU.As for Corey's hands, Dad had his people stop short of breaking them entirely. In the end, they'd only snapped two fingers, a last nod to whatever goodwill had once existed with the generation above Corey. But it was enough.Nobody in New York would do business with a man who'd betrayed the Connolly family. Every company in the city added Corey Harrison's name to a blacklist, and with no income and no prospects, the once-polished face he'd traded on was now hidden under weeks of patchy stubble. He was digging through the trash cans behind fast food restaurants.One night he stole a stale sandwich a homeless man had stashed in a cardboard box. The man broke a bottle over Corey's head. Corey ended up crouched on the curb, pressing his hand over a bloody socket where his right eye h
The lawyers arrived faster than I'd expected. Eight of them, all in black, briefcases snapping open in unison down the length of the dining table.Dad dropped the divorce agreement in front of Margaret. "Sign."One word.Margaret forced herself up onto one elbow, squinting through the swelling, her eyes having nearly swollen shut, and scanned the document. Nothing. She kept nothing. All real estate stripped, all shares revoked, every claim on Connolly Group assets in any form permanently severed.She bit down on her bloody lip and shook her head. "I won't... Raymond... twenty years... you can't do this to me..."Dad settled into the couch, legs crossed, voice flat. "Fine. Don't sign. There are a hundred and twenty-seven security cameras in this estate. I'll have someone pull a copy of the footage and send it to the FBI tonight. Kidnapping. Unlawful restraint. Aggravated assault. That's fifteen to twenty years minimum." He counted on his fingers. "You're forty-six now. Sixty-six when yo
Two hours later. Connolly estate, main hall.Margaret was shoving gold bars into a suitcase, her hands shaking so hard the bars clanked together. Isabella was across the room stuffing jewelry into a Birkin, jade bangles, diamond necklaces, ruby brooches, anything she could grab."Hurry. Back door. Now." Margaret's voice was barely above a whisper.Isabella grabbed the bag and ran. She pulled open the back door.Six men in black were standing in a line, and the one in front had a pistol aimed directly at her forehead. Isabella screamed. The bag fell. Jewelry scattered across the floor.The guard stepped forward, and the barrel tracked her head as she stumbled backward into the center of the hall. Another team came in through the kitchen exit with Margaret, and both women were shoved into the middle of the main hall, no chair, no wall, nowhere to put themselves, just stranded in the open like cornered animals.A helicopter overhead. Then the front doors opened.Dad walked in. His eyes to
The truck was still moving. My biological mother had her legs crossed, chatting at my biological father about her plans for my future."When we get there, lock her in the basement for three days. No food, no water. She doesn't start calling us Mom and Dad, she doesn't come out. If she cooperates, she marries. If she doesn't, we beat her until she does."I sat against the back seat and said nothing. I was waiting.A deafening roar split the sky above. Three heavy-duty helicopters swept in low, their rotors sending a wall of wind slamming into the truck. The vehicle rocked sideways, and my biological father grabbed the wheel and screamed, pumping the brakes.Too late.A dozen black armored SUVs burst in from every direction. The first one's bumper hit the pickup's front left wheel at sixty miles an hour, and the sound of twisting metal tore through everything. The truck lurched sideways two meters, sending both people in the front slamming their heads into the windshield.My biological m
The screaming on the phone was still going. Margaret's knees were trembling, but twenty years of knowing how to play the room forced her composure back into place.She licked her dry lips and made her voice as steady as she could manage. "Raymond, calm down. Just let me explain. Ivy left on her own. She was jealous of Isabella coming home, threw a fit, packed her things, and walked out. I couldn't stop her."Isabella picked up the thread instantly, wringing just enough hurt into her voice. "Dad, before she left she smashed the greenhouse. All the glass... I was scared, but I didn't want to worry you."Mother and daughter, seamless as clockwork.Three seconds of silence on the other end."She walked out on her own? Smashed the greenhouse?" He said the words back slowly, one at a time. "Margaret, you've had twenty years to come up with a story, and that's the best you could do?"Margaret's face twitched."There are a hundred and twenty-seven security cameras hidden throughout this estate







