“Sir, can we have some bread ”asked three little girls — and the millionaire CEO broke down in

Dr. Sarah Chen was a woman who asked questions only when the answers had clinical value.

She arrived with two black medical bags, an portable oxygen concentrator, and three boxes of pediatric antibiotics. She spent forty minutes upstairs while Michael sat in the library below, drinking black coffee he had brewed from beans that had expired eight months ago.

When Sarah came down the stairs, she was rolling down the sleeves of her white linen shirt. "Bronchitis for the mother. If she’d spent two more nights in that car, it would have been bilateral bacterial pneumonia. She’s malnourished, dehydrated, and her blood pressure is ninety over sixty."

Michael set down his mug. "And the girls?"

"Mild malnutrition. Emma has an ear infection that’s probably been brewing for three weeks, which explains why she's lethargic. Scarlet has calluses on her heels from those terrible shoes that would make an infantryman wince. But they’re tough, Michael. They’re remarkably tough."

"Can Eleanor stay here?"

"She needs bed rest for at least ten days. IV fluids would be ideal, but she had a panic attack when I took out the needle. She thought I was trying to sedate her so the state could take the children." Sarah looked at Michael over the rim of her glasses. "Where did you find them?"

"Lucent Sky. Asking Dennis Harrow for bread."

Sarah gave a short, humorless laugh. "Dennis must have had an apoplexy."

"Dennis is currently reconsidering his career trajectory," Michael said flatly. "I left a voicemail for Marcus Croft forty minutes ago."

Marcus Croft was the majority shareholder of the hospitality group that owned Lucent Sky, along with nineteen other high-end restaurants between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Michael sat on the board of Croft’s primary logistics provider.

"What did you tell Marcus?" Sarah asked.

"I told him that his general manager was lacking in customer relationship fundamentals," Michael said, his tone icy. "And that if Dennis Harrow was still employed by midnight tomorrow, my firm would divest its sixteen percent stake in Croft Hospitality's development bond."

Sarah shook her head, though there was no pity in her eyes. "You don't change, do you?"

"I don't like Dennis," Michael said simply. "He makes forty-five dollars an hour to tell starving children that a dining room isn't a soup kitchen. If he wants to guard food from the hungry, he can go work at an armory."

Sarah closed her bags with two sharp clicks of the brass latches. "I left Eleanor three courses of azithromycin and an inhaler. I’ll come back tomorrow evening to check her vitals. Michael... what are you doing with them?"

Michael looked toward the ceiling. Above them, through the thick plaster and the old beams, came the faint, muffled sound of running water—a shower running hot and steady, steam rising into a room that had been cold for six years.