Five minutes after I rejected the son of the most feared man in the room in front of two hundred stunned guests, his father cornered me inside a private study and asked the one question I had spent three years avoiding. “Why did you reject my son?” Vincent Marlowe asked quietly, and somehow his calm voice frightened me more than shouting ever could.

By Friday evening, Marcus Marlowe’s corporate plot was rapidly turning into an unmitigated disaster.

In the penthouse lounge of the St. Regis Hotel, Marcus sat across from Evan, downing his third glass of scotch in an hour.

"The girl refused to break!" Marcus barked, slamming his empty glass onto the marble table. "Her father ran like a rat the moment Vincent showed up at the hospital! Now Vincent has moved your mother's trust accounts into a private foundation!"

Evan sat in the corner of the plush leather sofa, staring blankly at his bandaged hand. The swelling had gone down, but a jagged red scar remained across his palm—a permanent reminder of the night his world had shattered.

"Give it up, Uncle Marcus," Evan said quietly, his voice devoid of any energy. "Claire is never going to leave him. And my father is never going to let her go."

"Are you an idiot, Evan?" Marcus yelled, leaning over the table. "You were supposed to be the heir! Now Vincent is talking about changing the company charter to allow non-family board members to hold executive voting rights! He's preparing to hand the logistics network over to her!"

Evan’s eyes flickered with a dark, bitter spark. "He wouldn't do that. The family charter requires a unanimous vote from the core bloodline."

"Not if he marries her!" Marcus snapped.

Evan went dead silent. The glass in his hand trembled slightly.

"What did you say?" Evan whispered.

"If Vincent marries Claire, she becomes a legal family member under Article 12," Marcus explained, his eyes glittering with desperate malice. "Her voting shares merge with his. Together, they will own sixty-two percent of the company. You and I will be stripped of our board seats by the annual meeting in spring."

Evan stood up slowly, setting his glass on the table.

"He wouldn't marry her," Evan muttered, though his mind was racing back to the private study—to the way his father had stood over Claire, the way he had admitted he wanted her without a single second of hesitation.

"He's been in love with her for three years, Evan!" Marcus spat out. "Why do you think he sent her to Paris for the logistics summit instead of you? Why do you think he paid two million dollars for her mother's care out of his private account? He was clearing her debts so she would belong entirely to him!"

Evan closed his eyes, a surge of burning jealousy and rage tearing through his chest. All his life, he had strived to earn his father’s approval, to be the worthy successor to the Marlowe empire. And in the end, his father had taken the only woman Evan had ever truly wanted, leaving him with nothing but a scar on his hand.

"What do we do?" Evan asked, his voice dropping into a dark, dangerous whisper.

Marcus smiled—a cruel, predatory grin.

"We target the shipping manifests," Marcus whispered, leaning in close. "The federal maritime agency is conducting a surprise audit on Terminal 4 on Monday. If we tip them off about the unregistered cargo Vincent has been running through Claire’s division, she won't just be fired. She’ll be facing federal prison time."

Evan looked at his uncle, hesitation flickering in his mind for a brief second. "Federal prison? Marcus... she's... I loved her."

"She chose your father, Evan," Marcus reminded him sharply. "And in this family, when someone betrays you, you crush them before they crush you."