Daniel doesn't tell his father before the interview airs. He decides that much deliberately, sitting across from a reporter he's paid handsomely to ask exactly the questions he wants asked, in a studio his father doesn't know he's booked."There's been a great deal of speculation," the reporter says, leaning forward with practiced interest, "about Lucien Moreau's sudden emergence as a claimant to significant business interests. As someone who's known him personally, what would you say to those questioning whether he's prepared for that responsibility?"Daniel leans back, comfortable, the humiliation of the ballroom folded somewhere beneath a smile he's been rehearsing for days. "I'd say the questioning is entirely fair. I knew Lucien when he delivered catering to my building. Pleasant enough young man. No formal education past what the state provided. No experience managing so much as a small business, let alone the kind of global interests he's apparently inherited ove

The move comes exactly when Vivienne predicted it would, a Tuesday morning three days into Lucien's training, when Leon bursts into the study with a printout instead of a tablet for once, as though the news deserves the weight of paper."Ashbourne International just filed a tender offer," he says. "Meridian Atlantic Shipping. They're offering thirty percent above market value for controlling shares."Vivienne is on her feet before Lucien fully processes the name. "That's one of ours.""I know," Leon says. "Or I know it's connected to us. I didn't know until this morning how deeply."Sophia pulls up Meridian's ownership structure on the main screen, and Lucien watches Vivienne's face tighten as the layers unfold, holding companies within holding companies, until finally a name appears that means something even to him. "Meridian handles almost all of Pandora's maritime logistics into New York," Sophia says. "If Nathaniel takes it, he doesn't just gain a shipping company. He gains visibi

The alarm tears through the compound's lower levels at two in the morning, and Ronan is moving before he's fully awake, the particular instinct of a man who has trained his body to respond faster than his mind can catch up."Report," he snaps into his radio, already pulling on gear in the dark."Financial records facility, sublevel four," the voice crackles back. "Multiple armed intruders. They breached through the maintenance tunnel, not the main entrance."Ronan is already running, weapon drawn, cutting through corridors he could navigate blind if the lights failed entirely. The financial records facility houses years of Vivienne's carefully constructed shell company documentation, the hidden architecture connecting Pandora's legitimate holdings to the empire beneath them, exactly the kind of target that would cripple the organization's financial defenses if it burned.He arrives to find two of his own security team already exchanging fire with intruders in ta