Arthur Vance was arrested in his daughter’s private school parking lot. The family assets were seized, the mansion in Brookline was auctioned on the courthouse steps, and Arthur’s wife took her own life in a motel room six months later.

Celeste wasn’t just after the family fortune.

She had built her entire life, her entire adult identity, for one single purpose: to walk into Charles Vale’s home, take Charles Vale’s son, strip Charles Vale’s legacy to the marrow, and salt the earth behind her.

“She doesn’t just want the company, Marcus,” Naomi whispered, looking up from the deposition. “She wants Adrian to watch it burn.”

“I know,” Marcus said quietly. “And the tragedy is, Adrian didn’t have anything to do with what his father did. He was twenty-five, living in London, completely detached from the firm.”

“Sins of the father,” Naomi muttered.

“The Bible says they visit the third and fourth generations,” Marcus said, his jaw tightening. “Unless somebody steps into the path of the wheel.”

“Turn the car around,” Naomi said.

Marcus didn’t touch the steering wheel. “Turn around to go where?”

“North Salem. St. Jude Palliative.”

“Naomi, there’s an arrest warrant out for you in two jurisdictions. If the Greenwich police spot this car, you’re going to a holding cell. You won’t be able to help Evelyn from behind bars.”

Naomi turned to face the old security chief, her eyes blazing with an unshakeable, ferocious calm.

“Marcus, for eleven years, I have washed that woman’s clothes. I have held her head over a porcelain basin when the chemotherapy nearly took her five years ago. I promised her late husband on his deathbed that I would never let Adrian destroy himself, and I promised Evelyn I wouldn’t leave her when the wolves circled.”

She reached out and tapped the glass of the speedometer.

“Now turn this damn car around, or get out and let me drive.”

A slow, grim smile cracked Marcus Thorne’s weathered face. He pulled the wheel hard to the left, tires spraying water as the sedan executed a sharp U-turn across the empty asphalt.

May you like

“God help Celeste Arden,” Marcus muttered under his breath, pressing the gas down. “She picked the wrong house to rob.”

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