The solicitor's name was Hargreave.

He had worked for the Voss family for thirty years, and in thirty years he had learned that Victor Voss did not call at four in the morning unless he needed something done before sunrise.

Edmund did not know about Hargreave's call.

He would not find out until Monday.

By then, it would almost be too late.

---

Monday came gray and cold.

Edmund had moved Dara to a private medical facility in the city — not a hospital, but a quiet residential care house with proper staff, proper heating, and a room with a window that caught the afternoon light.

She had not argued.

She was too tired to argue, and Edmund suspected she had stopped arguing about certain things long before he arrived.

Theo was enrolled temporarily in a school near Edmund's house.

He wore new clothes and proper shoes and carried a bag that was not falling apart.

He was polite to everyone and trusted almost no one, which Edmund thought was probably the right instinct for now.

Elara had taken to texting Theo approximately forty times a day.

Theo texted back in complete sentences, which Elara found hilarious and Edmund found quietly moving.

On Monday morning, Edmund called his own solicitor — a woman named Claire Marsh, sharp and methodical, whom he had used for business matters for six years.

"I need to discuss acknowledging paternity for a minor," he said.

"And I need to discuss potential legal action related to fraud and coercion."

"Against whom?"

"My father."

A brief pause.

"All right.

Come in at eleven."

He was in the car by ten-thirty when his phone rang.

A number he didn't recognize.

He answered.

"Mr.

Voss." A man's voice, smooth and careful.

"My name is Hargreave.

I represent your father."

Edmund's hand tightened on the phone.

"I know who you are."

"Then you'll understand that I'm calling in a professional capacity.

Your father has asked me to convey several things." A pause, arranged for effect.

"First, that he is prepared to acknowledge the distress caused by certain past decisions and to offer a private settlement to the woman in question — a generous one — provided the matter remains entirely private."

"No."

"Mr.

Voss, the sum being discussed is—"

"I said no."

"Second." Hargreave's voice didn't change.

"Your father wishes you to understand that any legal action you pursue will require a full examination of your business dealings over the past several years.

Specifically the Aldermere transaction and the associated holding company."

Edmund went still.

"That's a threat," he said.

"It's a context," Hargreave said pleasantly.

"Your father simply wants you to have the full picture before making decisions."

"The Aldermere transaction was legal."

"Of course.

But legal and comfortable to examine publicly are not always the same thing.

Particularly when one is simultaneously pursuing a paternity claim that will attract attention." Another pause.

"Your father is not an unreasonable man, Edmund.

He is simply asking for discretion."

Edmund looked out the car window at the gray city passing by.

"Tell my father," he said slowly, "that I have already spoken to Claire Marsh.

That I will be in her office in twenty minutes.

And that if he attempts to use Aldermere or anything else as leverage, I will add that to the list of things we discuss with her."

"Edmund—"

"And tell him that the boy's name is Theo.

He should know his grandson's name."

He ended the call.

His hands were not entirely steady when he put the phone down.

The car pulled up outside Claire's office building.

He sat for a moment.

The Aldermere transaction had been legal.

He was certain of that.

But Hargreave had not risen to thirty years with Victor Voss by making empty threats.

He would have something.

A document read a certain way, a signature that could be questioned, a holding structure that looked complicated under the wrong kind of light.

Edmund got out of the car.

Claire was waiting in the lobby.

She took one look at his face.

"Tell me everything," she said.

"From the beginning."

He did.

When he finished, she was quiet for a moment, her pen still.

"The letter," she said.

"Do you still have it?"

"Theo has it.

He carried it from Harwick."

"A ten-year-old carried the primary evidence."

"He also carried the photograph and walked barefoot into a ballroom full of strangers." Edmund looked at her.

"He's not an ordinary child."

Claire almost smiled.

"I'll need the letter.

And the photograph.

And anything else the mother kept." She made a note.

"The fraud case is strong if the doctor who signed the false statement can be identified.

That's the first thing to establish."

"And Aldermere?"

She looked up.

"Let me worry about Aldermere.

That's my job." She set her pen down.

"Edmund.

Your father is trying to make you feel exposed so that you hesitate.

That's all this is.

He's done it before — I've seen him do it to other people.

The question is whether you're going to hesitate."

Edmund thought about Theo in the kitchen at four in the morning, sitting across from him in too-large shoes.

I came here, didn't I.

"No," he said.

"I'm not going to hesitate."

"Good." Claire picked up her pen again.

"Then let's start with the paternity filing.

We do the right thing first and we do it loudly.

That sets the tone for everything that follows."

Outside, the gray Monday moved on around them.

And in his office across the city, Victor Voss read Hargreave's message and understood, for the first time, that his son was not going to stop.

He sat for a long time.

Then he opened his desk drawer and took out a folder that Hargreave did not know existed.