The police arrived at the warehouse eighteen minutes after the breach.Declan was sitting on a low concrete step outside the building with Georgina beside him, his jacket around her shoulders, when the first cars pulled up. She had stopped shaking by then but she was still holding his hand with both of hers and he wasn't pulling it away.The officers moved inside and came back out with Quinn and the surviving members of his team in cuffs. Quinn walked without resistance, his face blank, already doing the calculation that men like him always did when the operation had failed completely and the only remaining question was how to minimize what came next.That calculation didn't take long.Reeves told Declan later that Quinn had given Nathan up within the first twenty minutes of interrogation, before a lawyer had even arrived. Kidnapping, assault, conspiracy. The charges were serious enough that Quinn decided immediately that the only currency he had left was the name of the person who ha

Declan sat across from Victoria in his office on a Monday morning and told her he was leaving.She didn't look surprised. She had probably seen it coming for the past week, the way he had been moving through his responsibilities at Apex with the particular focus of someone finishing things rather than maintaining them."How long?" she asked."I don't know exactly," he said. "A few weeks at minimum. Possibly longer depending on what the transition involves." He paused. "You'll manage things here."It wasn't a question and she didn't treat it as one. "Yes," she said simply.They spent the next two hours building the structure that would hold Apex together in his absence. Three senior executives promoted with expanded authority and clearly defined decision-making lanes. A governance protocol that specified which categories of decision required his sign-off via video conference and which Victoria could handle independently. Weekly calls scheduled, daily briefings reduced to written summar

Franklin closed the folder but he wasn't finished."There's something else you should understand before we arrive," he said. "Family politics operates by its own rules. In some ways it's more complicated than anything you faced in Boston because the stakes are more personal and the history runs deeper."Declan looked at him. "Tell me.""Several of your relatives had reason to believe, over the years, that the heir's position might eventually fall to them or to their children," Franklin said. "Your grandfather never formally designated anyone during the years he was incapacitated. Your parents maintained control of the family's operations but the question of succession remained open." He paused. "Your return answers that question in a way that some people won't find comfortable.""How many?" Declan asked."Two uncles in particular," Franklin said. "Your father's younger brothers. One of them has been managing a significant portion of the family's international portfolio and has used th

The banquet hall was the largest room Declan had been in that wasn't a public building. Long tables ran the length of it, set with the kind of precision that suggested staff had been working on it for most of the day. Crystal, silverware, flowers arranged at intervals, candles burning in tall holders. The ceiling was high and the lighting was warm and the room was already full of people when Declan entered with his parents on either side and his grandfather's wheelchair moving quietly ahead of them. The room settled into a kind of attention when they appeared. His father guided him through the introductions methodically, moving from table to table, family group to family group. Names and faces came at him steadily. His father's eldest sister, warm and genuine, who held both his hands when she met him and said she had prayed for this day. Two cousins around his age who shook his hand with open curiosity and no visible agenda. An elderly uncle who had been close to Edmund before th

"How widespread is it?" Declan asked. "Cultivation. How many people actually practice it?" His father considered the question properly before answering. "More than you'd think," he said. "Significantly more. The general public has no awareness of it because considerable effort goes into keeping it that way, but within certain circles, certain families and organizations and institutions, it's simply part of how things operate." "There are schools?" Declan asked. "Dedicated facilities, yes. Some attached to cultivation families like ours. Others independent, taking students from various backgrounds based on aptitude." His father paused. "There are also hidden communities, places where cultivators live and work entirely within their own world with minimal contact with ordinary society. Some of them have existed for centuries." "And the government knows about this?" Declan said. "There's a specific agency," his father said. "Not publicly acknowledged. It monitors cultivation acti