The trust. My mother’s money. The only thing in the Reid empire that wasn’t built on debt and leverage. She left it to me to escape them, not to fund them.
“Great,” I say, stepping closer. “Freeze it. Burn it. I don’t need it.”
His eyes widen, just a fraction. He expected panic. He expected me to fold for the cash because that’s what he would do. He doesn’t understand that the money isn’t my escape route anymore.
Beatrice steps forward, her composure fracturing, voice cracking.
“You’re ruining everything for me!”
I turn my gaze on her—flat, cold, done.
“Didn’t you know?”
I tilt my head, letting the cruelty land.
“My father needs your money because he ran the family accounts into the ground. And your father needs our name because he’s desperate for legitimacy.” I look between them. “It’s a transaction. I’m just the receipt. And I’m done being passed around.”
Her face blanches white. The truth hits her like physical violence. She didn't know.
Alistair steps between us, hand raising like he might strike me.
“Watch yourself, son.”
“No,” I say quietly, towering over him. “Watch me.”
I shoulder past them.
My hands shake.
Not from fear—from fury.
And from the desperate, clawing need to be anywhere else. To be with her.
The second I walk inside Elm House, it feels like a pressure cooker—music pounding, bodies everywhere, the floor vibrating with victory energy.
But I see her instantly.
Talia stands near the foyer with Clara, Zoë, Maya, and Genny. She’s laughing at something Zoë said, head tilted back, throat bare and soft in the dim light. She looks… light.
Then Rylan appears.
He weaves out of the kitchen, eyes glassy, shirt unbuttoned. He shouldn’t be here. He’s scratched. He’s exiled. He crashed the party.
He spots her.
He leans toward her, too close, too familiar, invading the circle.
My vision tunnels. The noise drops away.
Before I can cross the room, Dante steps between them like a shadow peeled off the wall. He doesn’t touch Rylan—he just looks at him. Dark. Lethal. Silent.
“Who let you in?” Dante asks, voice low enough to cut under the bass.
Rylan goes chalk white.
Two Elm House pledges swarm instantly, muttering about “blacklists” and “get him out.”
Rylan stumbles out the front door, looking over his shoulder, bitter and drunk.
