“I have no intention to.”

“Marcus.” Her voice had changed.

“Three weeks ago, my office received an inquiry requesting a formal review of that property’s administrative trust structure.” Marcus froze.

“From whom?” “From Blue Horizon Asset Management.” He closed his eyes.

“I never authorized that.” “I know,” Victoria said.

“That’s why my team flagged it and put it on hold.

But Marcus, the draft they sent along with the inquiry contained a rider clause.” And Marcus stood in Evelyn’s kitchen, listening to his attorney describe, in precise legal language, the machine that had been quietly assembling itself around his daughter, and he understood that Lily’s whispered warning that morning had not come a day too soon.

It had come, quite possibly, in the last hour it still could have.