Miles away, the heart of Manhattan beat with a different kind of cold.
Clifford sat in his office on the top floor of a Wall Street skyscraper. The room was pitch black, save for the glow of the city lights filtering through the floor-to-ceiling windows behind him. He sat with his back to the view, swallowed by the shadows of his high-backed leather chair.
The heavy oak door opened. Marcus stepped inside, his footsteps muffled by the thick carpet. He placed a thick, black folder on the mahogany desk. "The dark web report, sir."
Clifford reached out, his long, elegant fingers flipping open the cover. He scanned the pages, his face completely unreadable.
Marcus stood at attention. "The DNA results are confirmed. The child is yours."
Clifford's jaw tightened almost imperceptibly. There was no joy, no relief. Just a deep, festering annoyance.
Marcus flipped to the next section. "We've compiled her movements over the last five years. She was placed in the foster care of Cade Pask after the Christian fire. The reports indicate severe physical and financial abuse."
Clifford paused. He looked down at the surveillance photo paper-clipped to the page. It showed Eliza at fifteen. She was curled into a corner of a filthy basement, her arms raised to protect her head. Her skin was a canvas of bruises, cuts, and old scars. She looked like a beaten animal waiting to die.
"She has no connections," Marcus continued. "No bank accounts, no hidden assets. She's a nobody. A bottom-feeder who survived on scraps."
Clifford stared at the photo. The silence in the office stretched, heavy and thick. Then, a slow, cynical smirk twisted his lips. He slid the folder to the side and fed it into the industrial shredder built into his desk. The machine whirred to life, reducing the evidence of her suffering to confetti.
He stood up and walked to the bar cart. He poured three fingers of pure bourbon into a crystal glass. The ice cubes clinked against the sides, a sharp, crisp sound in the quiet room. He downed it in one swallow, the burn spreading through his chest, doing nothing to extinguish the restless, violent energy coiling inside him.
He walked over to the window, looking down at the millions of lights below. The people looked like ants. Insignificant. Temporary. Just like her.
"Keep her in the North Wing," Clifford said, his voice hollow. "Let her be a good little incubator. Feed her, monitor her, but keep her out of my sight."
Marcus hesitated. "Should I arrange a private medical team for the wife, sir?"
Clifford turned his head, his eyes flashing dangerously in the dark. "Do not use that word in my presence, Marcus."
Marcus bowed his head. "My apologies, sir."
"She is a container," Clifford said, enunciating every word with cold precision. "A temporary vessel to secure the trust. The second she delivers, she is disposed of. Am I clear?"
"Crystal, sir." Marcus turned to leave, but paused as Clifford's phone buzzed on the desk.
Clifford picked it up. It was a text from the head of security at the Hamptons estate.
Target seems disoriented. Tripped over a chair in the dark. Refused dinner. Appears weak.
Clifford stared at the word weak. Unbidden, the image of his mother flickered in his mind-pale, fragile, crumbling in the shadows of this very house before she vanished. Weak. Just like her. A strange, irritating sensation clawed at his chest, a violent rejection of the vulnerability he refused to acknowledge. It wasn't pity. It couldn't be pity. It was just disgust, he told himself. Disgust at her weakness. Disgust that a part of him had reacted to her vulnerability.
He hurled the phone across the desk. "Marcus. Prepare the car. We're going to the Hamptons tonight."
The door closed. Clifford was left alone in the dark. He sat back down, his fingers drumming a rapid, agitated rhythm on the mahogany. He kept seeing those eyes-those flat, gray, lifeless eyes that had looked right through him.
He stopped drumming. He picked up the empty bourbon glass and hurled it at the wall.
The crystal exploded into a thousand shards. Clifford sat in the silence, his chest heaving, the taste of ash in his mouth.
