“I don’t care about the board,” he said, but I could see the tension in his jaw.

He did care.

He had given his entire life to this company.

It was his identity, his sweat, his blood.

I looked out the window at the rain.

My mother had fled this place to protect me, and she had died in a drafty house in West Virginia.

Maybe I belonged back there, in the quiet, away from the gold-leaf ceilings and the sharp-edged secrets of Greenwich.

If I stayed, I would ruin him.

My phone buzzed in my pocket.

I pulled it out, expecting another threatening message from an unknown number.

Instead, the screen lit up with a text message from an unlisted contact.

I stared at the glowing screen, my heart stopping as I read the words.

The screen showed a photograph of an old, yellowed piece of paper.

It was a letter, written in elegant, fading blue ink.

My eyes scanned the handwriting, recognizing the signature at the bottom: Arthur Carter.

“I cannot choose you over the family name,” the letter read.