Vivienne stood up, her sapphire velvet gown brushing against the edge of the walnut table with a sharp, dry whisper. The diamond earrings she had worn with such calculated grace now seemed heavy, swinging with a manic rhythm as she forced a laugh that didn't reach her eyes.

"Damian, this is absurd," she said, her voice dropping into that smooth, practiced timber she used when managing the board members of her father’s shipping company. "You’re letting the grief of a staff member’s child dictate a scene. Evelyn, take the child upstairs. Now."

Evelyn Doria did not move.

For forty-one years, Evelyn had watched men like me—men whose empires were built on imported limestone, quiet dockyards, and things that never appeared on customs declarations—lose their tempers, their leverage, and sometimes their lives. She knew every twitch of my jaw. She knew that when I went completely still, the air pressure in the room was about to drop.

"The child is three, Miss Vivienne," Evelyn said, her voice dry as winter parchment. "And she has not been in her mother’s room since the night the ambulance came."

I kept my eyes on Vivienne.

"Open your hand," I said.

My voice wasn't loud. In the room, thirty-two people held their breath so completely that the persistent tapping of the rain against the Long Island glass sounded like a barrage of small stones.

Vivienne’s nostrils flared. The calculation behind her blue eyes—that cold, sharp mechanism that had made her a master of high-society freezing-out—was working overtime. She realized she couldn't out-shout me. She couldn't charm her way past a dead woman’s ring.

Instead, she tried dignity.

"I bought this at a boutique in Soho three days ago," she lied, her chin lifting with defensive hauteur. "If some dead maid had a piece of cheap trinketry that looked similar, that is a coincidence. A tragic, messy coincidence that you are turning into a circus."

"A boutique," I repeated.

"Yes."

"In Soho."

"Are you hard of hearing, Damian?"

I looked past her, toward Marco Bianchi, who stood quietly by the door with his hands folded in front of his belt. "Marco."

"Boss?"

"Send a car to the Soho boutique Miss Vivienne mentioned. Find the owner. Bring them here. If they aren't open, break the lock."

Vivienne’s facade cracked. Not a wide break—just a hairline fracture right across her lower lip where her teeth bit down too hard.

"You wouldn't."

"You don't know what I would do," I said quietly, stepping around the table until I stood inches from her. "Sofia Carter worked in my home for three years. Every morning at six-thirty, she set a white ceramic cup to my right and a black ceramic cup to my left. On her right thumb, there was a callus. On her middle finger, there was a narrow platinum band with an uneven, hand-cut star inside the band."

I reached out, my fingers wrapping around her wrist before she could pull away.

"If that star isn't there, Vivienne, I will apologize to every guest in this room, buy you a new estate, and never look at you sideways again."

I turned her hand over.

The room leaned in.

I hooked my thumb beneath hers and pried her fingers open. The ring lay there against her pale skin, catching the yellow light of the chandelier like a drop of cold grease.

I didn't even need to take it off to see the notch.