"You have exactly one hour before Mr. Voss expects you at the estate. A car will be waiting downstairs in fifteen minutes."
The voice on the other end belongs to someone I've never met.
I stare at the phone, then at the clock. Milo is at daycare until six. I have time to face whatever fresh hell Victor Voss has planned.
The black sedan idles at the curb like a hearse waiting for its passenger.
We've barely cleared the first intersection when my body decides to betray me—my milk lets down in a warm, unstoppable rush, soaking through my bra and spreading across my silk blouse in twin circles of humiliation.
The driver's eyes flick to the rearview mirror, then away, professionally pretending he hasn't noticed.
By the time we pull through the gates of the Voss estate, I look exactly like what Rowena has always accused me of being: a mess who can't keep herself together.
Victor Voss waits in his study, surrounded by dark mahogany and leather-bound books that have never been read.
He doesn't rise when I enter. He doesn't offer me a seat. He simply watches me cross the Persian rug like a specimen under glass.
"Drink?"
He gestures toward a crystal decanter on the sideboard.
"You look like you could use one."
"No, thank you."
"I insist."
His tone makes it clear this isn't a request.
"Sit. Have some water, at least. We have much to discuss."
He pours from a pitcher into a heavy tumbler, sets it on the desk in front of the leather chair I'm clearly expected to occupy. I take a sip.
"You've caused quite a bit of trouble for this family, Elara."
"I've caused trouble?"The words escape before my better judgment can intervene. "Your wife threatened to have my son taken away. Your company is apparently imploding. And you think I'm the problem?"
He leans forward, close enough that I can smell the scotch on his breath.
"If I find out you're part of what's happening to my company, I will take that child. I will have you declared unfit, unstable, whatever it takes. You will never see him again."
My hands grip the armrests until my knuckles go white.
"I don't know anything about your company's problems. I've been a single mother trying to make ends meet. Whatever's happening to Voss Global has nothing to do with me."
"Then explain this."
He slides a thick manila folder across the desk.
Pages and pages of financial documents, transaction records, shell companies with names that mean nothing. Dates stretching back six months. Money trails spiraling into dead ends.
"Someone with intimate knowledge of our operations has been systematically destroying us from the inside. Leaked acquisition plans, sabotaged partnerships, board members turned traitor. Months of coordinated attacks, and they all started around the time you conveniently disappeared."
"You think I'm capable of this?"
I flip through documents that swim before my exhausted eyes.
"I was a brand strategist. I made PowerPoint presentations. I don't know the first thing about shell companies or financial sabotage."
"But you knew people who do. You had access to our systems, our schedules, our vulnerabilities."
"Why do you hate me so much?"
The question escapes before I can stop it, raw and wounded in a way I swore I'd never let this family see.
"Three years, Victor. Three years I tried to be enough for this family. I smiled at your galas. I sat through dinner after dinner while your wife reminded me that I came from nothing."
"He could have."
Victor says it like a simple fact.
"The Ashford girl would have been a far more suitable match."
"Right. A woman with good hips, you mean. That's what you said."
"I said what needed to be said. You were never right for my son, Elara. Not before the miscarriage, not after. Your father was a schoolteacher, your mother a nurse. Admirable professions, I'm sure, but hardly the foundation for a Voss dynasty."
The cruelty is so casual, so matter-of-fact, that it takes my breath away.
"I loved your son. Isn't that supposed to matter?"
"Love." He laughs, a sound like gravel scraping glass. "Love is a luxury for people who don't have empires to protect. Caspian needed a partner who could strengthen our position, not a sentimental girl who couldn't carry a pregnancy to term."
"I had a miscarriage. I didn't choose to lose our baby."
"And yet here you are, a year later, with a child whose paternity you can't even confirm. Quite a turnaround for a woman with a supposedly hostile uterus."
The bile rises in my throat.
"You know what's remarkable about this family? The consistency of your cruelty. It's almost impressive, really, how thoroughly you destroy anyone who doesn't fit your perfect mold."
I set the water glass down with a sharp click.
"Is that what happened to Rhys's mother? Your own sister? She married for love instead of status, and you cut her off completely."
Victor's face goes rigid.
"Rhys has been telling tales, I see."
"He told me she died of cancer while he was trapped in a Swiss boarding school, unable to get home because no one in this family would authorize a flight. He watched her funeral in a hotel room because the people who were supposed to love him decided she wasn't worth mourning."
"Elena made her choices. She suffered the consequences."
"She was your sister. And you let her die alone because she fell in love with the wrong man. Just like you're trying to destroy me because I wasn't born with the right pedigree."
"Careful, Elara." His tone drops to something dangerous. "You're in no position to lecture me about family loyalty. You ran from your husband without a word. You hid his potential child for ten months. Whatever happens next, you brought on yourself."
He rises, towering over me with the kind of power that comes from decades of never hearing no.
""You have one week to convince me that my company's destruction has nothing to do with my son's runaway wife. Prove you're innocent, or I will ensure that child grows up without you."
The threat lands exactly where he intended—straight through my chest.
"I'll prove it."
My voice comes out steadier than I feel.
"But while I'm doing that, maybe you should look closer to home. Maybe you should ask yourself who else—I don’t know, maybe your wife?—has intimate knowledge of your operations."
Something flickers in his eyes. Suspicion. Recognition.
"Get out."
I leave the estate with my ruined blouse clinging to my skin and my mind racing.
My phone buzzes. Tessa.
You sound like death warmed over in your last voicemail. I'm not taking no for an answer. Get dressed. I'm sending a car.
Another buzz. An address I don't recognize, somewhere in the West Village.
You need this. Trust me.
I should stay home. I should keep working on my list of suspects, keep piecing together the conspiracy that's closing around me like a fist.
But Victor's words are still echoing in my skull, and suddenly the thought of sitting alone in this apartment with my thoughts feels like drowning.
I text back a single word: Okay.