Lottie stood terrified as hostess Vesper Alderbrook seized her chin, pressed a crystal water goblet from the head table against her tightly closed lips, and softly threatened the child to drink if she wanted her mother to stay.

Marcus scrambled backward through the crushed pastries, his tuxedo ruined with berry jam and melted chocolate, his breathing coming in ragged, shallow wheezes.

"You left us no choice, Godwin!" Marcus gasped, spitting a fleck of blood from his bitten lip. "The Commission gave us an ultimatum six months ago! Either we open the deep-water berths to their container ships, or they freeze our accounts in New York! You were going to let the whole empire rot because of your obsolete codes of honor!"

"My codes of honor built the roof over your head, Marcus," Godwin replied, turning the red envelope over in his hands. He broke the black wax seal with his thumb and extracted a single sheet of vellum.

Godwin’s eyes scanned the typed lines.

"A bill of sale," Godwin read aloud, his voice carrying effortlessly into every corner of the frozen ballroom. "Assigning ninety percent of the Alderbrook Maritime terminals to an offshore shell entity in Grand Cayman. Effective upon the death of Godwin Alderbrook. Signed by Marcus Alderbrook as secondary executor."

A horrified murmur ran through the gathered guests. Senator Albright stepped back from the dessert table, shaking his head. "Marcus, you told me this was a routine restructuring! You swore Godwin had authorized the sale!"

"He wouldn't authorize anything!" Marcus screamed, dragging himself up by the leg of a serving table. "He lives in the dark ages! He thinks we're still running liquor out of speedboats in the twenties! The modern world runs on volume, Godwin! Fifty million dollars a month in synthetic opioids moving through Terminal Four, and you turned it down because you don't like narcotics on your streets!"

"I don't poison my own city, Marcus," Godwin said. "And I don't poison my own table."

"You were going to ruin us all!" Vesper sobbed from the bench, her head buried in her hands. "Marcus said they were going to kill my boy in Zurich if we didn't help them! They showed me photographs of him walking to his prep school! They had men outside his dormitory, Godwin!"

Godwin looked at his cousin. The cold fury in his eyes didn't soften, but his voice dropped into an icy, measured register. "If someone threatens your child, Vesper, you come to the head of this family. You don't put aconite in my water glass and then try to choke a six-year-old girl to death when the maid takes the fall."

"I panicked!" Vesper wailed. "When Clara started convulsing in the back, I knew Lottie saw me! If Lottie told you, I was dead! If the Moretti people found out the hit failed, my son was dead! What was I supposed to do?"

"You were supposed to die like an Alderbrook," Godwin said coldly.

The heavy service door banged open again. Dr. Sterling stepped through, his shirt sleeves rolled to the elbows, his forearms smeared with charcoal paste.

"Godwin," Sterling said, his voice taut with urgency. "Clara is conscious. The convulsing has stopped, but her pulse is irregular. She needs a full gastric lavage and cardiac monitoring within twenty minutes, or the secondary toxins will cause renal collapse."

Godwin turned to Kane. "Bring the private limousine to the service ramp. Silas, carry Clara to the back seat. Sterling, you ride with her. Take her directly to Saint Jude’s. Tell the chief of surgery that if she dies, I will personally audit his foundation's private ledgers."

"Yes, Mr. Alderbrook," Kane said, disappearing into the kitchen.

Lottie looked up at Godwin, her hazel eyes glistening. "Is Mommy going to live?"

Godwin knelt on one knee in front of the little girl, ignoring the crushed pastries on the floor. With a gentle thumb, he wiped a streak of soot and tears from her rosy cheek.

"Your mother is going to live, Lottie," Godwin said, his voice entirely devoid of the lethal frost he had used on his cousins. "You saved her life today. And you saved mine."