Chapter 3
The founder’s reserve was not simply money.
It was leverage.
Dominic explained it carefully, as if each sentence might detonate something that had been buried under the Sterling estate for decades.
Old Sterling patriarchs had built a private reserve outside normal family operations. Property, cash, hidden partnerships, favored crews—resources controlled by whoever held the founder’s key.
Andrew never used it.
That was what Dominic had believed.
“So who has the key?” I asked.
Nobody answered immediately.
Then Richard looked at his mother.
Eleanor noticed.
Too late.
“You,” I said.
She lifted her chin.
“Not anymore.”
That was worse.
I looked at Dominic.
“Who?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.”
Richard laughed bitterly. “Of course he doesn’t.”
I turned toward him.
“You do.”
He stopped laughing.
I walked closer.
“Eleanor provokes me in front of half the family. She threatens the house. You attack me before she can leave. That means tonight mattered beyond humiliating Lily.”
Richard said nothing.
I continued.
“You needed me to choose Lily publicly.”
Eleanor’s eyes narrowed.
There.
I had it.
Not the full answer.
Enough.
“You wanted witnesses.”
“Everyone already knows where your loyalties are,” Eleanor said.
“My daughter?”
“Exactly.”
Her contempt sharpened the word.
I understood then that Lily was not only a child she disliked.
Lily represented the part of me Eleanor could never control.
“You thought choosing her would make me look disloyal to Sterling.”
“You chose one child over an entire bloodline.”
I stared at her.
“No. I chose not to let you abuse her.”
“Same thing.”
That phrase told me what kind of story they had been preparing.
I looked at Richard.
“If enough people say I put Lily above the family, what happens?”
His jaw tightened.
Eleanor answered.
“The reserve can be challenged.”
“By who?”
Silence.
“Who holds the key?”
Nothing.
I looked toward Dominic again.
He seemed troubled for a different reason now.
“What?”
He took a slow breath.
“There’s only one person Andrew ever mentioned who could override the reserve.”
My chest went cold.
“Who?”
Dominic looked directly at me.
“His brother.”
I stared at him.
May you like
Andrew had told me his brother died twelve years ago.
And suddenly Eleanor’s confidence about taking my house made far more sense.
