He added a single dormant clause to the master deed, and he made me promise never to mention it to my husband.

The clause was narrow and precise and merciless.

If Flynn Locke ever initiated a divorce without my knowledge or consent, or attempted to abandon me financially during a medical crisis, or moved to sever my marital equity without my written agreement, then one hundred percent of the proxy voting stock held by Locke Global’s primary institutional lender would default, at once and by operation of the deed, to my sole personal control.

Because that lender — the quiet institution that held the debt underneath Flynn’s whole gleaming empire, the foundation the entire tower was built on — was secretly owned by my grandfather’s trust.