I caught my husband kissing my older sister in my mother’s kitchen while twenty people celebrated my father’s sixty-fifth birthday in the next room. / Chapter 108 / 120

Chapter 108 - The Price of Blood

"I am nothing like you," I said, my voice dropping to a low, lethal register.

Arthur smiled patiently, the way a teacher smiles at a stubborn child.

"Look at this terminal, Maya," he said, tapping a touchscreen on the central console.

The screen blinked to life, displaying the global ledger of the Thorne estate. Four hundred and twenty million dollars. Real estate holdings in Geneva, maritime fleets in Singapore, corporate trusts in Delaware. All of it funneling toward the single input field: *Kore*.

"This is the world, Maya," Arthur said softly. "The real world, operating beneath the kindergarten morality of courts and federal agents. With this wealth, you can buy governments. You can protect yourself from every threat. Eleanor and Madeline were the dead branches on the tree. You and I are the root."

"And Liam?" I asked, watching him carefully.

Arthur’s smile vanished, replaced by a cold, calculating flatline.

"Liam is an obstacle. A noble soldier with the conscience of a boy scout. He belongs to the old world, the world where laws mean something. He will drag you back into mediocrity, Maya. He will make you weak."

"He made me whole," I countered, feeling every fiber of my being harden against the man standing before me. "He stood beside me while my family tore my flesh. He bled for me. Something you have never done for anyone in your miserable, hollow life."

Arthur sighed, shaking his head with theatrical disappointment.

"A pity. I hoped the crucible had burned that sentimentality out of you." He reached slowly into his pocket, his fingers curling around a small, matte-black detonation transmitter. "You didn't think I would leave the tender dock unguarded, did you? Your federal friends and your valiant lover are currently swimming through the submerged flume. The motion sensors tripped four minutes ago."

My blood ran cold.

"Arthur, don't—"

"The flume is rigged with twelve pounds of C-4," Arthur said calmly, his thumb hovering over the recessed button. "One press, and the ocean rushes into that granite tube. Liam dies in the dark, Maya. Unless you place your hand on that biometric scanner right now and authorize the transfer of the *Kore* trust to my secondary offshore ledger."

He held out his hand toward the console.