“What threat?”

“The people behind Greer didn’t want your empire.”

“Then what did they want?”

Donovan looked toward the rain-darkened windows. “They wanted your wife to come home.”

Chapter 5 — The Marlowe Estate

The Marlowe estate stood forty miles outside New York City, behind fields that looked abandoned from the highway. No gold gates. No marble statues. No visible guards.

That was the point. Inside, analysts worked across three floors beneath portraits of people who had spent generations influencing history without ever appearing in it.