Beckett looked up at Linnea with a breaking voice, confessing through tears that they were just so hungry

Saturday morning dawned gray and bitter across the metropolis.

In a luxury suite at the Windsor Carlton hotel—rented with the last functioning personal credit card Edward possessed—Marguerite paced the carpet like a caged panther. She had torn off the butterfly bandages in a fit of rage, revealing a jagged, angry crimson gash running from her cheekbone to her jawline.

"We cannot just sit here drinking room service coffee while that harlot sleeps in Mother’s master bedroom!" Marguerite hissed, throwing a silver teaspoon against the wall.

Edward sat slumped in an armchair by the window, an untouched glass of whiskey in his hand. His paper birthday crown had been replaced by disheveled white hair and hollow, sunken eyes.

"She has the trust documents, Marguerite," Edward said quietly, staring into the fog. "She has Vance. She has the judicial district in her pocket. If I contest the transfer in court, the forensic accountants will find the unlisted accounts in the Caymans. I would spend the rest of my natural life in federal prison."

Marguerite stopped pacing, her swollen eyes narrowing into two slits of poisonous cunning.

"The courts aren't the only way to break a woman, Father."

Edward looked up slowly. "What are you talking about?"

"Linnea was gone for six years," Marguerite said, lowering her voice as she leaned over Edward’s chair. "She disappeared without a dime. She reappeared three years later with twins, and then another boy. Who is the father, Edward? Have you ever asked yourself that?"

"She refused to name him," Edward muttered. "Said he was nobody. A ghost."

"A ghost doesn't provide twenty million dollars in liquidity to buy international debt notes," Marguerite sneered. "A ghost doesn't hire the best private security firm on the Eastern seaboard. I spent the last three hours on the phone with our old associates in the shipping docks. Six years ago, when Linnea vanished from New York, she was seen in Milan. In the private compound of Marcus Valerius."

Edward’s glass slipped from his fingers, shattering onto the Persian rug. The whiskey soaked into the wool.

"Valerius?" Edward whispered, his voice trembling with genuine terror. "The head of the Mediterranean shipping syndicate? The man who ordered the hit on the Castiglione family?"

"The very same," Marguerite said, a vicious, triumphant smile spreading across her battered face. "Linnea didn't earn that fortune by trading stocks. She stole it. Or worse—she ran away with his heirs. Look at Beckett’s eyes, Edward. Look at those dark brows and high cheekbones. He doesn't look like a Thorn. He looks like a Valerius."

"If Marcus Valerius finds out those children are in this city..." Edward stammered, his knuckles turning white.

"He will come for them," Marguerite whispered coldly, pulling her phone from her purse. "And when he arrives with fifty armed men to reclaim his blood, Linnea won't be worrying about board seats or real estate deeds. She will be begging us for help."