The time for compliance was over.

My mother’s voice echoed up out of memory, sharp and uncompromising as the day she took my engagement apart. An empire requires clean lines, Elliot.

It cannot tolerate liabilities. I’d always assumed she meant money. Watching these men move, I understood the real reach of it. To the Bellmonts, these two boys weren’t grandchildren.

They were unauthorized deviations from a curated ledger.

Nathan reached up and touched my hand, his small fingers warm against my cold skin. The sheer vulnerability of it went through me like current and burned off the shock, leaving something focused and cold behind.

I closed my hand gently around his and let him feel that his father was solid, and real, and not going anywhere.