Everyone laughed when they sent an eighty-year-old man and his eighteen-year-old wife off to spend their wedding night together. “Let’s see if Grandpa can make it until morning,” one relative joked through a burst of laughter. He didn’t respond. He simply picked up his old briefcase and closed the door. When six relatives opened it the next morning, they stopped laughing when they discovered what he had been protecting all night.

Right next to her name, a broker had written the cold note: “Young.

Completely without family.

Easily pressured.”

Chloe felt an icy chill run down her spine as she read the paper.

Walter stared intensely at those handwritten words on the official court document.

“They were completely wrong about you,” Walter said quietly.

“In what way were they wrong?” Chloe asked.

“They were dead wrong when they assumed you were without family,” Walter answered firmly.