There is a lie that families like the Vances tell themselves, a lie that wealth and blood together are a kind of sovereignty, that what happens inside the walls of the estate is nobody’s business but the family’s, that a man may do as he likes to those beneath him in his own house and call it private.

Arthur had lived his whole life inside that lie, and it had worked, because he had never before done a thing so severe that the world outside the walls was forced to notice.

But a child had nearly died.

A stranger had been required to save him.

Police had been called and hospitals involved, and in that moment the walls of the estate simply ceased to matter, and Arthur’s private kingdom was revealed for what it had always been, which was not a kingdom at all, only a house, subject like every house to the laws that protect children from the adults who would harm them.

Chapter 12 — Did You Give Him a Chance