Across Crestmont, Meridian Tower stood over the whole downtown district. Julian Ashby, the eldest of the five Ashby sons, sat at the head of the table in the main conference room. He was closing in on forty, and the custom suit sat on a lean, straight frame. His features had aged into something cold and well kept, and the whole effect carried the weight of a man at the height of his powers. A private ringtone cut through the meeting, and his eyes sharpened. He raised one hand, and the executive walking the room through a project update stopped mid-sentence. Julian took the call and said nothing, waiting until a voice he had not heard in years came through. “Julian…” His brows drew together at once. Noelle had not contacted the family in almost eight years. Calling him herself meant something had gone badly wrong. Has Victor Rhodes done something to her? If he has, he can watch me pull every dollar we’ve put into his projects. The thought turned his face to ice, and then Noelle spoke again, thick with tears and hurt. “Julian… I’m divorcing Victor. Will you come get me and Wren? Take us home?” She leaned on him the way she used to whenever someone hurt her, all those years ago. That single sentence dropped the temperature around him, and Julian rose out of his chair. The executives felt the cold anger coming off him and lowered their heads, and not one of them dared ask a question. He had already stopped registering the room. He turned and walked out, leaving all of them behind, with nothing in his head but what Noelle had just said. She had married that man against the whole family’s objections, and now she wanted out. He’s done something to her. Something bad. Very well, Victor. Very well! He ended the call, and on his way to the elevator, he opened the group chat with his brothers and started a call. The moment it connected he skipped every preliminary. “Noelle’s getting a divorce. Anybody in Crestmont still breathing, you’re coming with me to get her out.” In four different places, four brothers put down what they were doing at the same moment. “Thirty minutes.” That was Callum Ashby, the second brother, who never said more than he had to. Everett Ashby came next. “Leaving my office at the university now. Twenty-seven minutes.” Beckett Ashby came in right after him. “I’m at the gate about to board. Just started my leave. I’m turning around, so tell her to wait for me!” “I’ve got a shoot this afternoon… I can clear three hours.” Dorian Ashby spoke last and made it sound like a favor, though he was already walking off the set. His agent and half the crew called after him. He tossed one line back over his shoulder without slowing down. “Kill the afternoon. Whatever it costs, put it on me.” The five Ashby brothers set out from five different parts of the city and converged on the Rhodes house. Out in front of that house, nothing had improved. Noelle and Wren had only reached the door when Marla stepped into their path. “Mrs. Rhodes, I’m not trying to make this hard on you. But if you’re going, what belongs to this family stays.” Marla was a cousin on Victor’s mother’s side, and she had spent years leaning on that connection to keep Noelle in her place. Now she meant to do worse than that. “I haven’t taken a thing from this house. Now move.” Her face had gone tight. She was so sick of the people inside that she had walked out without a single bag. Marla knows that. She’s doing this on purpose. Marla did not move an inch. She lifted her chin and let her eyes land on the diamond bracelet at Noelle’s wrist. “That diamond bracelet. That came from Mr. Rhodes, didn’t it?” Victor’s mother had mentioned once that it was a custom piece and cost a small fortune. Let her take the brat with her. Something that expensive stays in this house. Inside, Victor saw them standing at the door instead of leaving and assumed she had changed her mind. He came out just in time to hear Marla. He knew exactly what she was doing, and he let her keep doing it. A lesson wouldn’t hurt her. If she turns around and asks me to take her back, none of this has to end in a divorce. He never guessed how much colder his silence made her. Victor ordered that bracelet for her with the first real money he ever earned, and she had treasured it for years. Now it only made her skin crawl. She reached to unfasten it without hesitating. He had told her at the time that the point of the piece was to keep her locked to him, and the clasp was built to hold. It would not come off. That was when Vivian spoke up behind her. “Victor, don’t make this hard on her.” Her voice stayed sweet, and she let a small pause sit in the middle of it on purpose. “You bought that bracelet for me, but she’s worn it for years. Let her keep it.” The false kindness in it, and the charity underneath, froze Noelle’s hand where it was. She turned, and what she aimed at Victor held shock, fury, and disgust. He ordered this bracelet for Vivian? And he handed me the thing he bought for his mistress! I wore it for years like a fool, like it meant something… Her loathing peaked, and she yanked harder at the chain. The harder she pulled, the tighter it closed. A red line rose across her wrist. Her eyes were about to spill over when a small pale hand stretched up toward her. Wren had gone up on her toes and reached until she caught the wrist with the bracelet on it. “Here, Mommy. I’ll do it.” She drew the hand down to her own level, took hold of the chain at both ends, and never once looked for the clasp. She gave it one small tug. The chain gave with a sharp snap. The whole bracelet warped and broke apart into several pieces. Wren held the pieces up and tipped her face toward Noelle like she was expecting a prize. “Look, Mommy! It’s off!” Then she tossed the pieces aside without a second thought. Noelle looked at the ruined chain on the floor, then down at Wren, and everything pressing on her chest lifted at once. “That’s my girl.” She laughed and cupped Wren’s head in both hands. Without another look at Victor or at the metal on the floor, she moved to step around Marla. Watching her throw away a bracelet she had once guarded so carefully put a dull ache under Victor’s ribs. Something important was walking away from him, and he called out before he had thought it through. “Marla, don’t let them out.” She moved to block the doorway without a moment’s hesitation. “Hold on! The bracelet’s off, but how do we know she isn’t walking out with something else?” Noelle’s face turned to frost. “Meaning what? You want to search me?” I’ve been reasonable so long that these people think I’m easy. Noelle had been even-tempered for years, and the sudden cold in her nearly sent Marla back a step. Then Marla squared her shoulders again. “I’m doing this for your own good. That way nobody comes back later saying something went missing.” Noelle was about to go off when Wren moved first. She stepped forward, tipped her head back, and fixed Marla with a pair of wide eyes that seemed to see all the way through her. “My mommy didn’t take anything from this house. You did, Granny. You took something with a bad thing stuck on it, and if you don’t put it back fast, every bit of bad luck in this house lands on you.” Something unclean clung to that object. If it never went back, the bad luck stacked up for the Rhodes house would land on Marla instead. Wren had no use for the mean granny or the bad daddy who picked on her mommy, so she kept the rest to herself. And my readings are not cheap. Getting called Granny by a child that size stung worse than the accusation did. What is wrong with this brat’s eyes? I’m not even fifty. Granny? She was gathering herself to let loose when the rest of it caught up with her, and her expression changed. How does she know I took Mr. Rhodes’s… Caught out, Marla could not make herself look at Victor, and the shame came out of her as anger. “What are you on about, you little brat? Making things up about me won’t get you out that door! Nobody’s leaving today until every stitch you’re wearing comes off!” She actually reached out to grab hold of Noelle. Victor stood there watching without the smallest move to stop her. Noelle was ready to put hands on Marla when engines came roaring up the drive. A sports car led the line, came in fast, and slid to a hard stop a few feet short of them. A second luxury car pulled in right behind it. A third came in after that. A fourth followed. Then a fifth rolled up at the end of the line. Every one of them was the kind of car that turned heads in Crestmont, rare enough in a mid-range gated community like this one, and several black town cars filed in behind them. The sight of it stopped Victor where he stood. Only Noelle, when she saw who was climbing out, felt her eyes sting. Doors opened down the whole line at once, and more than a dozen tall figures stepped onto the drive. Past the matching bodyguards at the back, the five men in front stood out on their own. Julian Ashby led them. His face was hard, his voice came down like iron, and every word carried a warning. “I’d like to see somebody try and stop an Ashby from walking out of here.”