“No,” he whispered, his voice cracking like dry parchment. “No, there’s been a mistake. Julian, you’re joking. Eleanor is… she’s a mechanic. She lives in a ranch house in Gastonia. She’s a widow with nothing!”

I stepped forward, my emerald silk rustling against the marble like the warning of a predator. Every step was a decade of hard-earned power.

“I live in that ranch house, Liam, because it was the first home Richard and I ever bought,” I said, my voice projecting to every corner of the hall.

“I fix alternators because I haven’t forgotten where I came from. But I own the steel mills that made the car you drove here tonight. I own the logistics company that delivered the bourbon you’re trembling over. And as of five minutes ago, I own your future.”

Beatrice, clutching a glass of champagne, let it slip from her fingers. It shattered at her feet, splashing her expensive shoes.

“You… you’ve been mocking us,” she hissed, trembling with rage and terror. “You sat at our table, ate our food, and let us believe you were a nobody!”