Chapter Twelve

Corren’s POV

Friday morning arrived with the kind of clear, hard light that made the estate look untouchable.

I stood at the window of my private office before seven, coffee in hand, watching the security detail move along the inner perimeter. Raymond had doubled the rotations as instructed. Two extra men were stationed near the main gate. The west wing, where Ava’s rooms were located, had been quietly closed off from the main thoroughfare of the house. She would remain there until I decided otherwise. The thought of her—still marked from the night before, still learning the shape of the rules I had set—settled something restless inside me. That part of my life, at least, remained under control.

The rest of it was less obedient.

Marcus entered at 7:10 with the day’s file. “Mr. Ellison is confirmed for eleven,” he said. “He’s bringing the updated property portfolio and the revised trust documents you requested. He’s asked for a full hour.”

David Ellison had been my personal attorney for sixteen years. He was precise, discreet, and one of the few men I trusted with the actual architecture of my holdings. If he was asking for a full hour, it meant the papers were not routine.

“Clear the east conference room,” I said. “No interruptions. And make certain Ava does not leave the west wing while he’s here.”

Marcus nodded once and left.

I spent the next three hours on calls that only sharpened the edge of my concentration. A shipping delay in Rotterdam had turned into a contractual dispute. One of the minority shareholders who had dined with Daniel Crowe the previous week had sold another small block of shares. The pattern was becoming clearer: pressure from the outside, applied in careful increments. Crowe himself had gone quiet since I refused his earlier request for a meeting. Quiet, in my experience, was rarely peaceful.

At 10:55 I walked to the east conference room.

David Ellison was already there, a lean man in his late fifties with wire-rimmed glasses and the calm expression of someone who dealt in permanent consequences. Two slim folders and a larger binder sat neatly on the table in front of him. He stood when I entered and shook my hand.

“Corren. You look like a man who hasn’t been sleeping enough.”

“I sleep when things are settled,” I said, taking the chair opposite him. “What do you have?”

He opened the first folder. “The coastal properties. You’ve asked me to tighten the ownership structure. I’ve drafted the transfers into the secondary holding company. Once these are signed, the chain of title becomes considerably more difficult to challenge. I’ve also prepared the updated declaration of beneficial interest.”

I turned the pages slowly. The language was exact. Every clause closed a door I preferred to keep closed. Outside this estate, men like Crowe looked for soft points. These documents removed several of them.

“And the trust?” I asked.

Ellison opened the second folder. “The revisions you requested regarding the educational and maintenance provisions. The language now gives you broader discretion over continued support and residency. It also clarifies that any beneficiary living under your direct household authority falls under the estate’s internal protocols.” He looked up. “This will cover the young woman currently residing here, if that’s still your intention.”

The reference to Ava was deliberate and carefully neutral. Ellison did not ask questions he did not need answered. I respected that.

“It is,” I said.

He made a small note. “Then you’ll want to sign the residency addendum as well. It formalizes her presence under the household structure and gives security clear parameters.”

I signed where he indicated. The pen moved steadily. Each signature was another layer of control placed between Ava and the outside world, and between the outside world and the arrangement I was building with her. The guardian relationship that had once been only financial was becoming something far more complete. Ellison did not comment. He simply turned the next page.

We spent the following forty minutes moving through the remaining documents: the Italian property, the revised voting rights on two subsidiary boards, a quiet adjustment to the share structure that would make hostile approaches more expensive. Ellison spoke in the precise, unadorned sentences I preferred. I listened, asked short questions, and signed.

At one point he paused and removed his glasses.

“There’s something else,” he said. “Unofficial. Two different sources have mentioned that Crowe’s people have been asking about historical transfers connected to a particular educational trust. They’re not close to anything, but they’re digging.”

The educational trust. The one that had paid for Ava’s life since she was eight years old.

I felt the familiar cold clarity settle over me. “How far have they gotten?”

“Nowhere that matters yet. But the interest itself is noteworthy. Especially given the timing.”

I closed the folder in front of me. “Monitor it. If they file any formal request, I want to know before the ink dries.”

“Of course.”

Ellison began gathering the documents. “I’ll have the final copies delivered by Monday. The residency addendum can take effect immediately once it’s witnessed.”

I walked him to the door of the conference room. In the hallway the increased security presence was visible—two men at the far end, another near the staircase that led toward the west wing. Ellison noticed but said nothing. He had seen the estate under tighter conditions before.

After he left, I remained in the conference room for several minutes, the weight of the signed documents still present in the room. The legal structure around my properties was stronger than it had been that morning. The structure around Ava was stronger as well. Both mattered. Both were now connected in ways I had not originally planned.

I left the east wing and walked toward the center of the house. Marcus intercepted me near the main staircase with a short update: the Rotterdam dispute had escalated by another degree, and Crowe’s office had requested a call. I told him to refuse it.

Then I turned toward the west wing.

Ava would be there, waiting within the boundaries I had set. The papers I had signed that morning gave those boundaries formal weight. The desire I felt when I thought of her gave them a different kind of force entirely.

Outside the walls, men were beginning to push against the edges of my holdings.

Inside them, I was still deciding how much of her life I intended to claim.

I walked the remaining distance to the west wing with that question already answering itself.