Chapter 10
I asked Eleanor one question.
“Did Andrew know you felt that way about Lily?”
She looked at me with open contempt. “Andrew was sentimental where the child was concerned.”
Not answer.
But close enough.
Michael turned away from her.
That hurt Eleanor more than anger.
“He loved his daughter,” I said.
“He endangered the family by confusing love with succession.”
I stepped closer.
“No. You endangered her because you confused cruelty with qualification.”
The oldest capo in the room, Samuel Crest, removed his family pin and placed it on the table.
Not surrender.
Statement.
“I served Andrew,” he said. “He never once told me Lily was temporary.”
Another capo nodded.
“Neither did he.”
One by one, old men who had lived through Eleanor’s era began admitting what she had never allowed herself to hear.
Andrew intended Lily to inherit whatever part of Sterling she proved capable of leading.
Not because she was entitled.
Because he refused to disqualify her for being born female.
Eleanor had been fighting that future ever since his death.
I looked at Richard.
“You knew?”
He shook his head.
“I knew she resented the succession plan. I didn’t know why.”
Michael laughed softly.
“Because she never tells anyone the whole truth.”
That was becoming the central fact of the night.
Then Dominic’s phone vibrated again.
He read the message and went pale.
“What?”
He looked at me.
“Someone accessed the nursery corridor.”
My entire body went cold.
Lily.
I was moving before anyone finished speaking.
Three bodyguards followed.
Thomas met us halfway up the stairs.
“She’s safe.”
I stopped.
“Then what happened?”
He held something out.
A decorative gold cord.
Same kind that had spilled from the overturned cabinet downstairs.
“Tied across her bedroom door.”
My stomach turned.
Not enough to trap her.
Enough to send a message.
Thomas continued.
“There was a note.”
He handed it to me.
One sentence.
DISSOLVE THE RESERVE AND YOU LOSE THE HEIR.
Eleanor read my face from below.
Then looked genuinely confused.
May you like
That was when I knew the threat had not come from her.
Someone else still wanted the founder’s system alive.
