My father was shaking.

His overlooked, disappointing daughter had just, in a wine-stained gown, in the corner of his golden ballroom, calmly redirected the fate of a continent’s markets without raising her voice.

“Valerius Dynasty,” Thaddeus the elder whispered, and there was something close to fear in it.

“You’re the Ghost of Wall Street.”

“I am,” I said.

Chapter 17 — We Share Genetics

“But you told us you were a clerk,” my mother said, and now the tears came, tears of shock and thwarted control spilling down her powdered cheeks.

“You let us believe you were nothing.