Chapter 2

The moment I stepped past the estate gates, the phone in my pocket started buzzing violently.

My mother was calling.

The second I answered, Gordon's furious roar exploded through the speaker.

"You little bastard. You think you can just walk away?

"You think you can get away from us?

"You'll be at the banquet at the Regency House Hotel tonight if I have to drag you there myself, and you'll wait on Gloria Dane.

"If you don't, I'll take your grandfather's ashes out of the family chapel and pour them down a sewer."

At the word grandfather, my steps stopped.

It felt as though an invisible hand had closed around my heart, and murderous fury rose behind my eyes.

When I was fifteen, the Blackwells finally brought me back from the countryside.

My mother hated my accent and the smell of my secondhand clothes.

She thought I embarrassed her and could barely stand to look at me.

Damian wore expensive suits and had the staff call me a street beggar and a fraud.

Inside that frozen house, I lived like something that didn't belong.

Only Grandfather, Everett Blackwell, treated me any differently.

He came to the corner where I'd curled into myself, leaning hard on his cane.

With rough, callused hands, he gently wiped the dirt off my face.

When no one was watching, he pressed a piece of vanilla taffy into my palm.

"Don't be afraid, Leander. This is your home. Grandfather will look after you."

That sweetness was the only warmth I ever tasted in the Blackwell house.

Everett was the only person there who treated me like his grandson.

After he died, the estate became a real prison.

My mother put Damian above everyone else.

They moved me into a dark, damp basement room.

Then, because of the shares Grandfather left me, they swallowed Damian's lies and sent me to the most violent mining district in Kembala.

I'd thought they were only biased, only obsessed with status.

I'd never imagined they could sink this low.

They were threatening their own son with his grandfather's ashes to force him into a marriage he'd never consented to, for money.

"Gordon Blackwell."

My fingers tightened around the phone until my knuckles went white. My voice came out colder than winter.

"If you touch Grandfather's urn, I promise you the Blackwell name won't survive what comes next."

Damian's sharp laugh came through the phone.

"Why are you pretending to be dangerous?

"The old man's urn is under my shoe right now.

"Eight o'clock. Regency House.

"For every minute you're late, I'll spit in it."

The line went dead.

They'd hung up on me with perfect arrogance.

I stood on the sidewalk and slowly raised my head.

Something violent seemed to radiate off me, chilling the air.

Good.

Very good.

I'd only meant to bankrupt them and leave them with nothing.

Now they'd given up any claim to mercy.