“Now?” Elise squeals.
Cast grins, crossing his arms. “That’s what happens when the house is full of good little monsters.”
Rose gasps, grabbing Theo’s arm. “We have to go see!”
“Wait for me!” Elise yells, struggling to get up as Damien gently lifts her off my lap and sets her upright.
Penny’s already at the door, hopping from foot to foot, blanket falling around her shoulders. “Hurry, hurry!”
The kids take off toward the house, boots crunching, laughter echoing through the crisp air. I stay behind for a moment, still sitting in the snow, catching my breath as I watch them go—four small streaks of color vanishing into the warm gold glow spilling from the doorway.
Cast lingers by the porch railing, eyes meeting mine. “You did good,” he says, his breath visible in the cold.
“Yeah, well,” Damien says, nudging Cast with his shoulder as he steps up beside him, “they get their terrorist tendencies from you.”
Cast smirks. “What can I say? I raise fighters.”
Damien huffs a laugh, then turns back to me. He extends his hand, snow still clinging to his glove. “Truce?” he asks, his grin boyish beneath the lopsided Santa hat.
I take his hand, letting him pull me to my feet. “Until tomorrow,” I tease.
He laughs, brushing snow from my coat, his fingers lingering just a second too long. “I’ll take it.”
18
VINCENT
“Justin Vale,born in Silver Lake, Maryland,” Edgar hums, the distant sound ofJingle Bell Rocksin the background. “He stole Willow’s pin which was Rose’s birthday. Cut, but please change for security reasons.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose and lean back in my chair. The leather creaks, loud in the quiet of my office. “Of course, and where is the money now?”
There’s a shuffle on the other end, papers sliding, a sigh. “That’s the part you’re not going to like. It’s nothere.Not in any Cayman account or shell company. He moved it—bit by bit—over the last year into multiple nonprofits. Housing relief, food distribution centers, community outreach programs in low-income districts. Nothing about this looks like personal gain.”
I sit forward, elbows on my knees. “You’re telling me he stole fourteen billion dollars from Beaumont Holdings just to…feed people?”
“Not just people,” Edgar says. “Entire neighborhoods. Homeless shelters, medical vans, after-school programs. Theman’s practically built an invisible infrastructure out of your father’s money.”
My pulse stutters. “Myfather’smoney?”
Edgar hesitates. “That’s the other thing. Turns out, Justin was… displaced. When he was sixteen, your father’s development firm bought out a series of low-income properties near the docks in Silver Lake. Eminent domain. The project went belly-up, of course, like half of Victor Beaumont’s expansions. Families lost everything. Justin’s was one of them.”
The words hit like cold water. I stare at the Christmas lights bleeding through the glass—cold and clean, so far removed from the ruin my father left behind. “He was a kid.”
“Yeah,” Edgar says softly. “And your dad didn’t look back.”
I press my hand over my mouth. For a long moment, all I can hear is the slow, even hum of the heater, the faint rustle of papers on Edgar’s end.Fourteen billion dollars.I’d been prepared to hunt a thief, not face a mirror.
“Christ,” I murmur. “He wasn’t stealing. He was… returning it.”
“Seems that way,” Edgar admits. “What do you want to do with the report?”
I stare at the file open on my desk—the numbers, the transfers, the quiet proof of a man who took everything that broke him and used it to feed people my father never saw. PeopleInever saw. “Close it,” I say. My voice feels foreign. “We’ll cover the loss internally.”
“Mr. Beaumont-”
“Edgar,” I add, before he can hang up. “Set up a meeting with Legal and Corporate Social Responsibility. Tomorrow morning. I want to start a new foundation. Food and housing relief. Call it the Silver Lake Initiative.”
There’s a pause, then a faint chuckle. “Ahhh, good PR move.”
