By dawn, the mansion had transformed.
Not into chaos.
Into calculation.
No shouting. No panic. No visible cracks.
Just quiet reconfiguration.
Matthew had always believed that power wasn't loud. It adjusted. It absorbed. It redirected pressure instead of reacting to it.
But this time—
The pressure had a name.
And it lived under his roof.
Noah hadn't returned to sleep.
He'd stayed in the briefing room long after the others dispersed, reviewing fragments of the archive his mother left behind. Not everything. Just enough to understand the scale.
The red-highlighted stabilizers still burned in his mind.
Three pillars holding up the new structure.
Three institutions that looked clean from the outside.
He stood now in the study, staring at one of them on the main monitor.
Ardent Vale Holdings.
A multinational infrastructure firm. Renewable energy investments. Disaster relief contracts. Philanthropic grants.
Clean.
Respected.
Untouchable.
On paper.
