His jaw was set so tight the muscle twitched.

“If she is using Child Protective Services, she had to get an emergency custody order.”

“On what grounds?” I demanded.

I grabbed his arm, my nails digging through his expensive wool sleeve.

“I have done nothing wrong.”

“She will claim abandonment,” Dominic said softly.

He looked at me, his grey eyes clouded with a sudden, heavy guilt.

“She will claim I abandoned my heir, and that you kept her in unstable conditions.”

“Unstable?” I laughed, but it sounded like a sob.

“I have worked every single day to give her a home.”

“To my mother, a bookstore in Soho is a slum,” Dominic said.

The phone at his ear began to ring.

I watched his reflection in the side window.

The rain was starting to smear the glass, turning the streetlights into long, yellow blurs.

“Arthur,” Dominic said into the receiver.

His voice changed instantly, turning cold and flat.

“Where is she?”

There was a pause.

I could hear a faint, metallic buzzing from the tiny speaker.

Dominic’s face went pale.