The teapot hit the marble floor without breaking, but the maid’s scream split my dining room apart. By the time I looked from the burn spreading across Elena’s arm to the woman wearing my engagement ring, I already knew Camille had just shown me exactly who she was—and she had done it in front of everyone.

The headquarters of Moretti Holdings occupied the top three floors of the Harbor Tower. Inside the main boardroom, the air was thick with the scent of dark coffee, expensive leather, and unspoken panic.

Ten men and women sat around the heavy mahogany conference table. At the far end sat Arthur Vance, looking fifteen years older than he had a week ago. His suit was wrinkled, his hair unbrushed, and his hands shook as he stared at the financial documents placed before him.

I sat at the head of the table. To my right sat Aunt Victoria, looking immaculate in a dark burgundy dress, sipping black tea from a china cup. To my left sat Marco, dressed in a sharp grey suit, standing near the glass wall that overlooked the harbor.

“This is an outrage, Gabriel!” Arthur Vance slammed his palms against the table, though there was no real power behind the gesture—only the hollow rattle of a desperate man. “You defaulted on my credit line overnight! You’re freezing my company’s access to the cargo terminals! My board is calling for my resignation!”

“Your board should have called for your resignation three years ago, Arthur,” I said smoothly, turning a page in the legal dossier before me. “When you started siphoning funds from your payroll account to cover your daughter’s gambling debts in Macao.”

The room went completely silent. The other board members—men who had aligned themselves with Vance for years—looked away, suddenly deeply interested in their notepad margins.

Arthur’s face flushed a deep, unhealthy purple. “That’s private information!”

“Not anymore,” Victoria chimed in, her voice cutting through the room like a silver blade. “It became public record when Agent Mercer used your personal bank transfers as the foundation for his federal warrant last night. Did you really think you could sell my brother’s ledger to the FBI to cover your daughter’s debts, Arthur?”

Arthur’s mouth worked silently. He looked around the room, searching for an ally among the executives he had known for decades, but he found only cold, turned backs.

“Camille… Camille didn't know,” Arthur whispered, his voice cracking. “She just wanted the Moretti name. She thought if she married you, the debts would disappear! She didn't know I was talking to the feds!”

“Your daughter spilled boiling tea on a woman who has given thirty years of her life to my family,” I said, resting my elbows on the table and lacing my fingers together. “She treated my home like a playground and my staff like servants. She demonstrated precisely what your family thinks of the Morettis.”

I pushed a single sheet of paper across the polished mahogany toward him.

“What is this?” Arthur asked, his voice trembling.

“It is a full surrender of your shares in Moretti Holdings,” I replied. “Along with a deed transfer for your estate in Brookline and your logistics terminals in Gloucester. In exchange, my legal team will file an immediate motion to quash Agent Mercer’s warrant on grounds of illegal wiretapping—wiretapping that you authorized without a judge’s signature.”

Arthur stared at the paper as if it were a coiled viper. “If I sign this… I have nothing left.”

“If you sign this, you stay out of federal prison,” Victoria corrected dryly. “And your daughter gets to keep her cars and her clothes. If you don't sign it by nine o'clock, Gabriel’s lawyers will release the full audit of your offshore accounts to the IRS. You’ll be in handcuffs before lunch.”

Arthur picked up the pen sitting beside the document. His hand shook so violently that the black ink splattered across the first signature line. But he signed.

Line after line. Page after page.

When he finished, he threw the pen onto the table and looked at me with pure, unadulterated hatred. “You’re a monster, Gabriel. Just like Dominic. You don't love anyone. You just hold leashes.”

I picked up the signed documents, checking each signature with practiced efficiency before handing them to Marco.

“My father kept men like you on leashes, Arthur,” I said quietly, looking him dead in the eye. “I prefer to cut the cord entirely. Get out of my office.”

Arthur Vance stood up, his knees wobbling slightly, and stumbled out of the boardroom. The heavy glass door clicked shut behind him, sealing the remaining board members in absolute silence.