The Beggar’s Throne

Chapter Forty One

Now every street corner, every deal struck in a backroom bar, carried the shadow of Henry Blackwood’s reach. And somewhere between those shadows, Jake Sullivan moved, hunted but hunting too.

Amanda Carter sat in the war room Henry had set up inside her mother’s house. A room that had once been her father’s library now glowed cold with tablets, satellite phones, open dossiers. Blackwood’s men drifted in and out with the polite silence of hired wolves.

Outside that door, the Carter estate looked untouched — its old marble floors polished, its chandeliers glittering like nothing had changed. But Amanda felt it in her bones: everything had changed.

She’d signed her side of the agreement that morning. Her name on Blackwood’s contract felt like signing away her father’s ghost. Diane hadn’t come down to watch it — but Amanda knew her mother had heard the pen scratching across paper. She’d made her choice, and Jake’s final message sat unanswered on her phone.

Richard slipped into the room, s