Vance was a billionaire financier on paper. Federal intelligence painted a darker picture — a phantom who moved money for international syndicates, a man under sealed indictment by the Department of Justice.

My division had been tracking his attempts to buy up legitimate domestic logistics networks to launder his operations, and my father’s failing shipping empire was the perfect target.

I wasn’t just attending a wedding. I was running the intelligence side of a joint operation, waiting for Vance to make his move so the federal team could close the net.

My father walked past my pillar, his eyes sliding over me like a smudge on the wallpaper. Then he paused. Recognition hit — not with affection, but with a sharp spike of annoyance.

He stepped out of his circle and leaned in close, breath smelling of scotch and something going bad underneath.

“Try not to eat too much, Thomas,” he whispered, a smile fixed for the room. “We’re paying per head. And frankly, you’re not worth the plate.”

I looked at him — the broken blood vessels in his nose, the fear behind the eyes he masked with arrogance. A drowning man who thought he was waving.

“Good evening, Father,” I said, my voice neutral.

“Don’t call me that here,” he hissed, smile never wavering. “You’re a guest. Barely. You’re lucky Michael insisted. If it were up to me, you’d still be in whatever gutter you crawled into after you ran off to play soldier.”

I didn’t blink. I just watched him walk away.

I was here for Michael, my younger brother — ten years old when I was thrown out at eighteen for refusing the family business and enlisting instead. Michael was the only one who’d kept in touch.

Tonight he was marrying Sophia, a woman I’d met once and liked immediately. She had steel in her spine and eyes that saw too much.