Blue Horizon Asset Management had been incorporated just two months before Sarah first met Marcus at a charity gala.

And an internal pitch deck, recovered from the backed-up draft folder of Sarah’s own laptop, laid out the entire strategy in cold detail: a valuation of the Vineyard estate, asset liquidity projections, the trust’s management loopholes, tax shelter conversions.

It was all there, formulated in full, before Sarah had ever met his daughter, before she had ever smiled at Marcus across a room.

“She knew who I was,” Marcus said, resting his hands flat on Victoria’s conference table, “what I had, and what Hannah left behind, before she ever spoke to me.” Victoria kept her professional composure.