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

Marguerite lay on the Persian carpet, gasping for air and clutching her bruised throat, her eyes wide with unadulterated horror.

Edward dropped to his knees beside his fallen daughter, his cane clattering against the parquet floor. The great patriarch of the Thorn empire looked shriveled, ancient, and broken. He reached out a trembling hand toward Linnea’s hem.

"Linnea..." Edward wheezed, tears finally spilling from his rheumy, sunken eyes. "Have mercy. We are your flesh and blood. I am your father. I raised you in this house! I gave you everything!"

Linnea looked down at the old man kneeling before her, her expression as cold and unchanging as a marble monument.

"You gave me nothing, Edward," Linnea said, her voice ringing clear through the high vaulted room. "You gave me cold hallways and empty promises. When my mother was dying of cancer in the west wing, you were entertaining mistresses on your yacht in Miami. When I asked you for tuition, you told me a daughter was an expense, not an investment."

"I made mistakes!" Edward wept, bowing his head until his forehead nearly touched her leather boots. "I was blind, Lynn! Blinded by pride! But Marguerite... she didn't know what she was doing. She was desperate! Don't let Valerius come here! Don't let this family be destroyed!"

"This family was destroyed the moment you let Marguerite starve my children at your banquet table," Linnea said, stepping back so his hands fell uselessly to the floor. "When Beckett looked you in the eye and told you he was hungry, you cut your steak and called him an embarrassment. Do you remember what you told me, Father?"

Edward trembled, unable to speak.

"You said: 'It's one dinner, Lynn. Stop making a scene.'" Linnea quoted the words back to him with venomous precision. "Well, Edward. This is just one eviction. Stop making a scene."

She turned toward Miller, who stood silently by the door with his tablet.

"Are the transport vans ready?" Linnea asked.

"Waiting at the courtyard, ma'am," Miller answered.

"Take them to the private terminal at Teterboro," Linnea ordered coldly. "Put them on the charter flight to our remote lodge in northern Ontario. No phones. No internet access. No staff except two guards to ensure they don't freeze to death."

"Ontario?" Marguerite screamed from the floor, pushing herself up with shaking arms. "You're banishing us to the wilderness? Like animals?"

"You wanted scraps, Marguerite," Linnea said, looking down at her with absolute disgust. "Now you will live on them. In the snow. Where no one will ever have to listen to your poison again."

As the guards hoisted Marguerite and Edward to their feet, dragging them toward the doors, Edward turned his tear-stained face back one last time.