By the time the phone rang, New York City was drowning in rain and its youngest logistics tycoon was drowning in bourbon.

Sheets of water hammered the floor-to-ceiling windows of the fifty-second-floor office tower, turning Manhattan’s midnight skyline into a warped smear of light. Each raindrop carved a temporary river down the glass, separating Thorne Whitaker from the city that worshiped his last name.

He sat behind a mahogany desk big enough to land a helicopter on, tie loosened, charcoal suit jacket hanging off the back of his chair like a discarded skin. The whiskey glass in his hand wasn’t his first of the night. Or his second.

Thirty-five, six-foot-three, broad shoulders that filled a custom Italian suit like it had been cut on his bones. Dark hair, precisely styled, steel-gray eyes that could freeze a boardroom with a single look. In the financial press, he was “the prince of American shipping,” the man who moved goods across oceans and bent global trade routes to his will.

Tonight, the prince looked hollow.

Seven months.

That’s how long it had been since Ivy walked out of his penthouse and out of his life, leaving her wedding ring on the marble counter like a bullet casing after the shot. The divorce papers were signed, stamped, filed away in a safe in this very office. The law considered him free.

His chest did not.

The phone buzzed across the polished wood, rattling against a stack of quarterly reports. He didn’t bother to check who it was. Business never slept, Thorne Whitaker never slept, the New York markets never slept—every magazine profile had said so.

He took another swallow of bourbon.

The phone kept buzzing.

He sighed, picked it up, glanced at the screen. Unknown number.

“Whitaker,” he said, his voice flat, automatic.

A woman answered. “Mr. Whitaker, this is Memorial General Hospital in Manhattan. I’m calling about an Ivy Dorne.”

The glass slipped from his hand. Whiskey spilled across profit projections and growth forecasts, turning the ink into a bleeding mess.

His heart stopped.

“What happened?” The words scraped out of his throat. “Is she—”

“She’s been admitted. Emergency situation. She’s in room three-oh-four. There was no emergency contact on file, but your business card was in her wallet.”

He didn’t hear the rest.

He was already out of his chair, grabbing his keys, the world tilting on a new axis. Car accident. Sudden illness. Something he should have seen. Something he should have prevented—if he hadn’t been so busy being the ice statue his father had sculpted.

By the time the elevator doors closed, his hands were shaking.

In the underground garage, his black Porsche 911 waited like a coiled animal. He slid behind the wheel, jammed the key in, and gunned the engine. The car shot up the ramp, into the storm.

Ivy would have rolled her eyes at his driving. “Overcompensating, Whitaker?” she used to tease, tapping the steering wheel with manicured fingers, green eyes glittering. “You know this thing screams, ‘I’m emotionally constipated but rich enough to distract people from it,’ right?”

He’d pretended to be insulted. Secretly, he’d loved her for saying it. For seeing past the headlines and Forbes profiles and private jets to the emotionally stunted human underneath.

Ivy Dorne had always been the opposite of everything his world valued. Warm where he was cold. Reckless where he was calculating. At thirty, with auburn hair that caught sunlight like copper wire and a smile that could disarm him faster than any hostile takeover, she’d walked into Whitaker Industries as a marketing consultant and somehow walked out with his guarded heart.

She hadn’t cared about his money. Or if she had, she’d hidden it behind the infuriating habit of arguing with him in meetings.

“You’re selling numbers,” she’d said in that first pitch, standing in a glass conference room forty floors above Midtown. “I want to sell what those numbers do for real people. You move containers; I want to talk about the families they feed.”

The board had hated her.

He’d fallen in love.

But love had never fit comfortably inside the Whitaker family legacy. In his head, his father’s voice still rolled like a Wall Street thunderstorm:

Emotions are luxuries we can’t afford, son. Show weakness and they will tear you apart.

So even with Ivy, he’d held pieces of himself back. Kept parts of his heart locked behind steel doors, only ever opening them a crack. Enough to keep her, not enough to risk being destroyed if she walked away.

She had walked away anyway.

The rain on the FDR was a white curtain. Thorne wove through traffic like a man on a countdown. Red lights blurred past. Horns blared. Somewhere near East 68th, he realized he was speeding and eased off the gas just enough to keep the flashing lights away.

What if he was too late?

What if he pushed open that hospital door and—

He shut the thought down before it could complete.

Memorial General loomed out of the storm, all glass and concrete, the red EMERGENCY sign glowing through the rain like an accusation. Two in the morning in New York City, and the waiting room still buzzed with life—nurses in blue scrubs, a family huddled around a vending machine coffee, a man with a bloody towel pressed to his forehead arguing with registration.

“I’m looking for Ivy Dorne,” Thorne said at the front desk, voice low, controlled.

The nurse glanced up, saw the suit, the face she’d probably seen in news articles about shipping tycoons and Manhattan philanthropists.

“Family?” she asked.

He hesitated. Ex-husband didn’t begin to cover what he was. “Yes.”

“Room three-oh-four. Elevator to the third floor, down the hall to your right.”

His shoes squeaked on the polished linoleum. The air smelled like antiseptic and quiet panic. Every step down that hallway felt like walking toward an execution.

Room 304.

The door was half-open. Beyond it, the soft beep of monitors, the whisper of the air vent, the low murmur of someone talking.

His hand hovered on the handle.

What if she didn’t want him there? What if she looked up and told him to get out of her life and out of her hospital room? What if he’d already failed her so thoroughly that his presence was just another pain?

He pushed the door open.

Ivy was alive.

The breath he hadn’t realized he’d been holding crashed out of him so hard he had to catch himself on the doorframe. She was propped up against a pile of pillows, auburn hair a tangled halo around her pale face, eyes rimmed with exhaustion but sharp, always sharp.

And she was not alone.

In her arms were two tiny bundles wrapped in hospital blankets. One at each elbow, bodies curved against her, faces scrunched in newborn sleep.

For a second, the scene didn’t compute. His brain saw babies but labeled them abstractly, like stock photos or someone else’s life.

Then he saw the boy’s nose.

His nose.

Then the girl’s chin.

His chin.

Then the dark fuzz on both their heads that matched his own.

The room tilted. The floor dissolved.

“ Ivy,” he breathed. Her name fell out of his mouth like a prayer he’d never learned to say. “What…?”

She looked up at him. In those green eyes he saw pain, exhaustion, and something else—steel that hadn’t been there before. Seven months had carved new lines into her, forged a new kind of strength.

“Hello, Thorne,” she said, voice soft but steady. “Meet your children.”

Plural.

Children.

He stepped closer without feeling his legs move. The baby on her left shifted, letting out a soft, squeaky exhale that sounded like the tiniest complaint against the universe.

“I… didn’t know,” he managed. The words were raw, scraped out of a throat that suddenly felt too tight.

A flicker of emotion crossed her face—surprise, then confusion, then a flash of anger so sharp it seemed to slice the air between them.

“What do you mean you didn’t know?” Her voice rose, not loud, but edged. “I left you the pregnancy test results, Thorne. I left them on your desk with a letter. I put everything in your hands.”

His heart lurched. “What letter?”

Her laugh was bitter and hollow. “Don’t lie to me. Not now. Not here.”

“Ivy, I—”

“You responded to my email,” she cut him off, eyes blazing. “From your work account. You told me you wanted no involvement. That you’d send money, but you didn’t want in. You said the marriage was a mistake, and this just proved it.”

It hit like body blows, each word a fist to his ribs.

He searched his memory, every email from the last seven months scrolling through his mind like a spreadsheet on fast-forward. He remembered board fights, market news, mergers, lawsuits. He remembered whiskey and silence and nights staring at the ceiling.

He did not remember any email from Ivy.

“I never saw a letter.” His pulse slammed in his ears. “I never got any email from you. And I did not write that.”

She stared at him, breathing shallow, one baby fussing against her chest.

“Don’t,” she said quietly. “Don’t put this on some… glitch. I believed you. For seven months, I believed you read about our children and felt nothing but inconvenience.”

He stepped closer, every cell screaming that he was one wrong move from losing her all over again. “If I’d known,” he said, each word deliberate, “I would have been here for every single second. Every appointment. Every contraction. Every fear. I would have camped outside your OB’s office.”

She studied his face like a cross-examining attorney, looking for cracks, for tells, for lies.

All she found was devastation.

It showed in the way his jaw clenched, in the way his gaze kept flicking back to the sleeping newborns as if afraid they’d vanish. In the way his hand shook when he reached out, stopped himself, dropped it to his side.

“Someone intercepted your letter,” he said slowly. The words felt heavy in his mouth, like they were made of lead. “Someone went into my office, saw it, and made it disappear.”

A shiver moved through her. “And responded to my email as you.”

He didn’t answer right away. Because in his head, a puzzle he hadn’t known existed began snapping into place: the way his father had pushed the divorce through so fast, the insistence that he “keep distractions to a minimum,” the hints about “more suitable matches” for a man of his position.

He could practically hear Eldrich Whitaker’s voice:

You can’t build an empire if you’re busy changing diapers.

“Ivy,” Thorne said, low and deadly calm, “who else was in my office when you left that envelope?”

She swallowed. “Your receptionist had just gotten in. There was a junior analyst. And your father.”

Of course.

A knock on the door broke the moment. A nurse in purple scrubs poked her head in.

“Ms. Dorne? Time to take the twins to the NICU for overnight monitoring. Just routine,” she added quickly when Ivy stiffened. “They’re a little early, so we want to keep an extra eye on them.”

“How early?” Thorne asked.

“Thirty-five weeks,” Ivy said, answering for the nurse. “Emergency C-section six hours ago.”

Six hours ago, he’d been in his office pouring bourbon over numbers while she was on an operating table bringing his children into the world.

He stepped back as the nurse approached. Carefully, gently, she lifted each baby into a clear plastic bassinet, checking name tags, adjusting blankets. The boy squirmed, mouth opening in a silent protest. The girl flailed one tiny hand, searching until her fingers brushed Ivy’s wrist and curled there.

Thorne’s throat burned.

“I’ll bring them back once we’re done,” the nurse promised, pushing the bassinets toward the door. “You should rest.”

When the door closed and the room went quiet, the only sounds were the rain on the window and the distant hum of hospital life.

“I need to know exactly what happened with that letter,” Thorne said.

Ivy’s shoulders slumped, the fight draining out of her, replaced by a bone-deep exhaustion.

“Three days after the divorce was final,” she began, “I took a test. It was positive. I went to your office myself. Memorial Day morning, seven a.m. Midtown was empty.” She gave a small, humorless smile. “Even New York City rests sometimes.”

He could picture it. The usually crowded lobby quiet. Security guards drinking coffee, half watching the local news.

“Your guard knew me. He let me go up.” Her fingers twisted in the sheet. “I put the envelope on your desk. Letter on top, ultrasound photo, test stick. I wrote a note asking you to call me.”

“What did the letter say?” he asked, even though he knew this was a fresh type of cruelty for both of them.

“That I was scared,” she said simply. “That our marriage was over, but you had a right to know. That I didn’t want anything from you you weren’t willing to give. Just honesty.” Her voice hitched. “Two days later, I got an email from your work account. Cold. Clinical. It said you didn’t want to be involved. That you’d arrange financial support but wanted everything handled through lawyers.”

It was exactly how his father would have phrased it. Straight to the point. No messy emotions. Nothing that could be used against them in court.

“That wasn’t me,” Thorne said, each syllable carved with rage. “I swear to you, Ivy, on everything I own and everything I am—that wasn’t me.”

Something shifted in her eyes. Not forgiveness. Not yet. But doubt carved a crack in the story she’d been telling herself for seven months.

“The man who wrote that email,” she said slowly, “is not the man who used to sit up with me during thunderstorms because he knew they reminded me of the night my parents died. He’s not the man who held my hand so hard at my dad’s funeral I thought my fingers would break, but you never let go.”

Silence pressed in, heavy with the ghosts of what they’d been and what they’d almost had.

“Your father,” she said then, not a question, just a verdict.

He nodded once. “Has to be. He has access to my office, my email, my schedule. He’s spent thirty-five years managing every variable in my life. Why not this one?”

One of the monitors hummed. Outside, a siren wailed faintly, a reminder that somewhere else in Manhattan, someone else’s world was ending.

“What are their names?” he asked.

“I… don’t have any yet.” She gave a shaky breath. “I kept thinking I’d know when I saw them. But then they came early, and everything was chaos, and I just… waited. I don’t know what I was waiting for.” Her gaze flicked to him. “Maybe this.”

He moved closer to the window, watching lights blur across the East River. Brooklyn was a smudge of orange beyond the glass, the Brooklyn Bridge a faint outline in the downpour. Somewhere over there, people were sleeping. Somewhere over there, a version of his life with Ivy and their kids existed in a universe where his father had minded his own business.

“How was the pregnancy?” he asked.

The question cracked something open in her. For the first time since he’d walked in, she looked truly vulnerable.

“It was… rough,” she said. “First four months, constant nausea. I lost twelve pounds before I gained any. I kept working as long as I could.” She let out a breath that was almost a laugh. “Clients love a pregnant, divorced woman who can’t keep food down. Makes them feel like their marketing crises are manageable.”

“And you did all of that alone,” he said quietly.

“Astonishing what you can do when you believe the father of your children wants nothing to do with them,” she replied.

He reached out, fingers brushing the indent the hospital bracelet had left on her wrist.

“You should never have gone through any of this alone,” he said. “And I am going to make sure the man who stole those months from me—and from you—answers for it.”

She closed her eyes, leaning her head back against the pillow.

“Your father is not going to let you walk away from him easily,” she warned. “Confronting him means war, Thorne. You know that.”

He stood, shoulders squaring, the power that had intimidated CEOs and competitors now turning in a new direction.

“Good,” he said. “It’s about time I stopped being his son and started being their father.”

He bent, pressed a careful kiss to her forehead. The gesture was so familiar her breath stuttered in her chest, muscle memory pulling up nights on the couch and mornings in bed.

Neither of them noticed the figure passing the half-open doorway, expensive shoes soundless on the tile. A man paused, hearing just enough—Whitaker, father, war—to understand that seven months of careful manipulation were about to unravel.

Dawn washed New York in a thin gray light as Thorne’s Porsche slipped into the underground garage of Whitaker Industries’ headquarters. The tower rose over Midtown like a monument to American capitalism, Whitaker in ten-foot steel letters across the front.

His father’s name. His prison.

He did not go to his own office.

The sixty-third floor was silent at this hour, just the low hum of computers and the far-off sound of cleaning crews. The double doors at the end of the marble hallway gleamed. ELDRICH WHITAKER, CHAIRMAN & CEO in gold letters.

He didn’t knock.

The doors flew open hard enough to rattle the framed plaques lining the wall. Inside, Eldrich Whitaker looked up from his desk, pen poised over a contract, silver hair combed back in ruthless order.

“Son.” He glanced at his watch. “You’re late. The Carmichael call is at eight. You look terrible. Are you hungover?”

“Where is it?” Thorne asked.

Eldrich blinked. “Where is what?”

“The letter Ivy left on my desk seven months ago.” Thorne stepped forward, palms flattening on the polished wood. “The pregnancy test. The ultrasound photo. Where. Are. They.”

For a heartbeat, there was silence.

Then Eldrich leaned back, folded his hands calmly, and regarded his son like a misbehaving junior executive.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” he said.

Thorne’s hands tightened on the desk. “Do not lie to me. Not about this.”

“Even if I had seen such melodramatic little props,” Eldrich replied, the faintest hint of disdain sliding into his voice, “I would have disposed of them. For your own good.”

Thorne stared at him.

“So you burned them,” he said. “And you responded to her email—pretending to be me.”

Eldrich’s lips pressed together in a line that was not quite a smile, not quite a grimace.

“She was a distraction,” he said simply. “You were finally focused. The divorce was the best thing that happened to your career. I wasn’t going to let an unplanned pregnancy drag you back into domestic nonsense.”

“She was pregnant with twins,” Thorne said, his voice low, dangerous. “Your grandchildren.”

“Alleged grandchildren,” Eldrich corrected smoothly. “You have no proof those children are yours. Women like her—”

Thorne’s hand shot across the desk, faster than he’d thought himself capable. His fingers closed around his father’s throat, pinning him back in his leather chair.

“Say one more thing about her like that,” he said quietly, the words trembling with the force of the rage he was holding back. “I dare you.”

For the first time Thorne could remember, real fear flickered in Eldrich’s eyes.

And then it was gone, replaced by the same icy condescension he’d used on senators and rivals.

“Violence,” Eldrich rasped, when Thorne’s hand dropped. He adjusted his tie with quick, controlled motions. “How disappointingly unoriginal.”

“Where is the letter?” Thorne demanded.

“I told you,” Eldrich said. “I handled it. I burned the letter. I destroyed the test and photograph. And I instructed your assistant to grant me full access to your email so I could dispose of any further attempts at emotional blackmail.”

“Why?” The word came out hoarse.

“Because,” Eldrich said, standing now, walking to the wall of glass that turned Manhattan into his personal snow globe, “I have spent thirty-five years molding you into the successor this company needs. You are not going to throw that away over a woman whose idea of long-term planning is a mood board.”

He turned, hands in his pockets, the skyline a halo around his shoulders.

“The Carmichael merger alone will net us three billion dollars,” he continued. “Their daughter is beautiful, educated, from the right kind of family. A real partner.”

“Celeste,” Thorne said. Pieces clicked together—the charity gala three months ago, the orchestrated seating arrangement, his father’s too-casual suggestion that he take her for a drink.

“Exactly.” Eldrich nodded. “You will marry her. You will combine two shipping dynasties. You will secure this company’s future. That is what men like us do.”

Thorne felt something break cleanly inside him. Not with the messy crack of a bone, but the quiet, irreversible snap of a chain.

“I have children,” he said. “Two babies who were born last night while I sat in this building, oblivious, because you decided I didn’t need to know they existed.”

“You have obligations,” Eldrich snapped. “To this company. To these employees. To our shareholders. Those children, if they are yours, can be provided for. Trust funds, private schools, whatever keeps them comfortable and out of the way.”

The casual way he said it—like talking about line items on a budget—made Thorne’s vision go white around the edges.

“I’m done,” he said.

Eldrich’s eyes narrowed. “Done with what?”

“With you. With this company. With being your trained animal.” Thorne straightened, feeling taller than his father for the first time in his life. “I’m selling my shares.”

“You can’t be serious.” Eldrich actually laughed. “This company is your identity. Without it, you’re nothing.”

“Without it,” Thorne said, “I’m free to be the father my children deserve. And the man Ivy fell in love with before you spent years convincing me that love is a liability.”

“She won’t take you back,” Eldrich said. There was a sliver of desperation under the arrogance now. “Too much damage has been done. She will never trust you.”

“Maybe not,” Thorne said. “But I will spend the rest of my life earning that trust back. And if I fail? I’ll fail as myself, not as the man you programmed.”

He turned for the door.

“If you walk out of here,” Eldrich said sharply, “I will destroy her. The woman, the children, everything she’s built. I will make sure she never works in this city again.”

Thorne stopped, hand on the door handle. Slowly, he looked back.

“If you come anywhere near my family,” he said, and the word came naturally, without thought, “I will do more than grab you by the throat. I know every corner you’ve cut. Every senator you’ve greased. Every offshore account you’ve used to dodge taxes. I will hand it all to the FBI and stand there while they seize every asset with your name on it.”

For a long second, they stared at each other across three decades of coercion.

“You’ll regret this,” Eldrich said finally. “When you’re living in some forgettable suburb, struggling to raise someone else’s children. When the excitement wears off and reality sets in, you’ll come crawling back.”

“The only thing I regret,” Thorne said, “is that it took me thirty-five years to realize the most successful thing I can do is be nothing like you.”

The doors closed behind him with a satisfying, final click.

The NICU at Memorial General felt like a different planet from the glass and steel of Midtown. The lighting was soft, voices low, everything calibrated to the fragile lives inside clear plastic cribs.

Through the observation window, Thorne saw them. Two tiny figures, wires and monitors connected to them like spiderwebs. His children. His son’s chest rose and fell with small, determined breaths. His daughter’s fists fluttered in a dream fight.

Ivy stood between their incubators, auburn hair pulled into a messy knot, wearing dark jeans and a cream sweater. She looked smaller here than in the hospital bed, somehow both more vulnerable and more solid.

“The doctors say they’re doing well,” she said when he joined her, eyes on the twins. “Their lungs are strong. They’ll probably be here two weeks.”

“Two weeks,” he repeated. Two weeks of machines and nurses. Two weeks of watching their chests rise and fall through Plexiglas.

“I confronted my father,” he said.

She went very still.

“And?” she asked.

“He burned your letter,” Thorne said. “Destroyed the test and the ultrasound. Got access to my email and answered you himself. He admitted all of it. Called it ‘protecting me from my own bad judgment.’”

Ivy’s jaw clenched. “He decided our children weren’t in your best interest.”

“He decided my life,” Thorne said. “Same as he always has.”

She was quiet for a moment.

“There was a picture,” she said. “In the society pages. Three months ago. You and Celeste Carmichael at that charity gala on Fifth. ‘Whitaker heir and shipping heiress spotted dancing.’ They looked very excited.”

He winced. “That was my father’s idea of optics.”

“She’s beautiful,” Ivy said. “Blonde. Perfect posture. Knows which fork to use at those Manhattan charity dinners.” Her tone was flat, but her knuckles were white on the rail.

“I felt nothing for her,” Thorne said. “Less than nothing. I spent the entire evening counting down until I could leave.”

“But you went,” Ivy said. “You played the part.”

“I know,” he said quietly. “That ends now.”

A nurse approached, smiling kindly.

“Do you want to touch them?” she asked him. “Skin contact is important, especially for preemies. It helps regulate their temperature and heart rate.”

His first instinct was to deny it, to step back, afraid he’d break them with a touch.

Instead, he opened the small port in his son’s incubator and slid his hand inside.

The baby’s skin was warm and impossibly soft. When Thorne’s fingertip brushed his palm, tiny fingers curled around it with surprising strength, like a question and a claim all at once.

Mine? Mine.

Something in Thorne’s chest detonated. Not pain. Not exactly. More like the sudden, overwhelming awareness that his life had just split in two: before this grip, and after.

“What do you want to name them?” he asked, voice hoarse.

“I thought you should have a say,” Ivy said.

“I want to have a say in everything,” he replied, watching his son’s hand. “Their names. Their first words. Their first steps. Every scraped knee. Every midnight fever. I already missed their first breath. I’m not missing anything else.”

“It’s not that simple,” Ivy said. “Names are one thing. Life is another. You say you want to be involved, but what does that look like when there’s a board meeting and a pediatric appointment at the same time?”

“There won’t be board meetings,” he said, surprising himself with the certainty in his voice. “I’m selling my shares. I’m done with Whitaker Industries.”

She jerked her head toward him, eyes wide. “You’re what?”

“I won’t be the son he wants and the father they need,” Thorne said. “I’m choosing them.”

She stared at him. For years she’d begged him to put something ahead of the company. He never had. Hearing him say it now sounded like someone else’s life.

“What about him?” she asked finally. “He’s not going to take that quietly.”

“He threatened to destroy you if I walked away,” Thorne admitted. “To ruin your career, blacklist you, make your life hell.”

Fear flashed across her face and then disappeared under anger.

“And what did you say?” she asked.

“I told him if he comes near you or the babies,” Thorne said, “I’ll expose everything he’s been covering up for the last twenty years. The offshore accounts. The bribery. The environmental violations. I know where the skeletons are buried, Ivy. I’ve been helping to dust them.”

She exhaled, a sound that was half relief, half fresh anxiety.

“Our family,” he said, the words slipping out again. “He doesn’t get to touch our family.”

“You keep saying that,” she murmured. “Like we’re already something again.”

“Aren’t we?” he asked.

“We’re two people who share DNA and diapers,” she said gently. “Family is more than blood, Thorne. It’s trust. It’s knowing the person you choose will choose you back, every single time.”

Before he could answer, both babies decided they were done with peaceful sleep. Their tiny cries rose in tandem, high and insistent. The nurse moved in, adjusting tubes, checking monitors, showing Ivy how to latch the babies for feeding.

“Mr. Whitaker,” the nurse said, “you can stay if you like. Fathers are good at burping duty.”

He stayed. He watched. He learned. He held ridiculously small bodies against his chest and patted their backs until the air bubbles inside them released in tiny sighs. Every hiccup felt like a miracle. Every yawn, an accusation for the months he’d missed.

He stayed for hours, long after the nurse suggested he go home and shower. He only left when Ivy’s eyelids began to droop mid-sentence and the nurse promised she’d throw him out herself if he didn’t let the patient rest.

On his way out, his phone buzzed. He expected it to be his father.

It was his lawyer.

“Your father filed for an emergency injunction,” Miranda Chen said, her voice brisk and efficient. “He’s claiming you’re emotionally unstable and acting against your own financial interests. He’s trying to block you from selling your shares.”

Of course he was.

“Set up a meeting,” Thorne said. “Somewhere public. Neutral. You’ll be there.”

“The Four Seasons?” she suggested. “If you’re going to dismember a family empire, you might as well have good coffee.”

Three days later, the Four Seasons restaurant in midtown was all polished wood, understated luxury, and discreet staff. The kind of place where New York’s old money went to make problems disappear.

Thorne sat at a corner table with his back to the wall, facing the entrance out of habit. Miranda sat opposite him, dark bob sleek, suit impeccable, eyes cold enough to make billionaires flinch.

“Legally, his injunction is flimsy,” she said, tapping a folder. “You have clean mental health evaluations, documented decision-making history, no erratic behavior beyond quitting the job he wanted you to keep. Judges don’t love rich fathers claiming their grown sons are ‘crazy’ because they want to be present parents.”

“It’s not about winning in court,” Thorne said. “He wants to create enough chaos that I crack.”

The doors opened. Eldrich Whitaker walked in like he owned the building, which, given his portfolio, he might.

He came alone.

“Ms. Chen,” he said, taking the remaining chair without waiting for an invitation. “Always a pleasure sparring with you.”

“Mr. Whitaker,” she returned coolly. “I trust you’ve read our response.”

“An impressive document,” he conceded. “Ultimately unnecessary, since this isn’t about the law.” He turned to his son. “This is about family.”

“Funny,” Thorne said. “We seem to have very different definitions of that word.”

“You’ve had a shock,” Eldrich said, his tone sliding into that patronizing cadence he used on TV interviews. “You’re sleep-deprived, overwhelmed by these babies. I understand that. Anyone would be emotional.”

“Emotional,” Miranda murmured, almost amused. “What a crime.”

“You’re willing to throw away a three-billion-dollar merger over a woman who trapped you with a pregnancy,” Eldrich said. “Walk away from hundreds of millions in shares to play house in Brooklyn. That is not rational.”

“Let’s clear one thing up,” Thorne said calmly. “I’m not throwing away anything. I’m choosing something else.”

“Your alleged children,” Eldrich started.

“DNA test,” Thorne cut in. “If you’re so sure they’re not mine, we’ll do a paternity test. Today.”

For the first time, Eldrich faltered. A test would take away his favorite weapon: doubt.

“That’s unnecessary,” he said sharply. “Even if they are yours, that doesn’t change the facts. You need the company. You need me. You have no idea how to survive outside this world.”

“I have enough assets to fund my own start-up,” Thorne said. “Enough industry knowledge to do it right. And enough evidence of your ‘creative strategies’ to keep you very busy answering questions if you keep pushing.”

Eldrich’s jaw tightened. “You’re bluffing.”

“Miranda?” Thorne said.

She slid a thick folder onto the table between them.

“Copies of financial records,” she said, just loud enough for Eldrich to hear. “Internal emails, recordings, affidavits from former employees. It’s impressive, really, how many lines Whitaker Industries has crossed without tripping a regulator.”

“You’d destroy your own family’s reputation?” Eldrich asked, voice low.

“I’d dismantle a criminal operation,” Thorne replied. “The Whitaker name can survive. The fraud won’t.”

“What do you want?” Eldrich asked finally.

“I sell my shares, and you withdraw your injunction,” Thorne said. “You leave Ivy and the children alone. No calls, no flowers, no drive-bys, no mysterious job offers. You sign a legally binding agreement that you and anyone acting for you will stay out of our lives. Permanently.”

“And if I refuse?”

“Tomorrow morning, I send copies of that folder to the FBI, the IRS, the SEC, and every major paper in the country,” Thorne said. “Your choice.”

They stared at each other. Eldrich had stared down senators, foreign ministers, regulators. He’d never stared down his own son.

“You’ve changed,” he said quietly.

“I finally grew up,” Thorne answered.

Eldrich was quiet for a long time. The clink of cutlery and low conversations from other tables carried around them, strangely normal.

“There is something you don’t know,” Eldrich said at last. “Whitaker Industries is not as invincible as you think.”

Thorne frowned.

“The shipping market has shifted,” Eldrich went on. “New competitors with cleaner tech and leaner operations are eating our margins alive. For two years we’ve been bleeding cash. The Carmichael merger isn’t about expansion. It’s about survival.”

“How bad is it?” Thorne asked.

“Without the merger?” Eldrich said. “Eighteen months, maybe, before we’re bankrupt. Eight hundred employees out of work. Pension funds wiped out. Small American towns where our regional offices are the only decent employer, gutted. Families ruined.”

It was a masterstroke—pulling every string that could still reach his son’s better nature. It was also the first time Thorne had heard genuine fear in his father’s voice.

“Show me the real numbers,” Thorne said. “Not the board presentations. The real books.”

“Why?” Eldrich asked.

“Because if this is true,” Thorne said, “there might be another way to fix it. One that doesn’t involve sacrificing my family on your altar.”

Eldrich studied him. After a moment, he nodded once.

“One week,” Thorne said. “You bring me everything. If we can save the company legally and ethically, I’ll help. But my personal life is off the table. No arranged marriage. No conditions about Ivy. No manipulations involving the twins.”

“And if there’s no solution?” Eldrich asked.

“Then we proceed as planned,” Thorne said. “You sign the agreement. I walk away. And whatever happens to the company happens because of the choices you made, not mine.”

As they stood to leave, Thorne’s phone buzzed. A text from Ivy flashed on the screen.

Both babies fussy. Haven’t stopped crying in hours. Could use backup if you’re free.

He’d never seen a more important message in his life.

“I have to go,” he told his father. “My kids need me.”

“Of course they do,” Eldrich said. For once, there was no sarcasm in the words. “That’s what children do. They need their fathers.”

When Thorne got to Ivy’s downtown walk-up, he stepped into chaos.

Both babies were screaming. Ivy sat cross-legged on the living room floor in plaid pajama pants and a T-shirt that said COFFEE FIRST, WORLD LATER, rocking their son in her arms while their daughter howled in a bouncer.

“I’ve tried everything,” she said when she saw him, tears standing in her eyes. “Feeding, changing, burping, white noise. They’ve been at it for four hours. I haven’t slept more than two hours in a row in three days.”

The apartment looked like a war zone. Burp cloths draped over chair backs, bottles in the sink, diapers overflowing from a trash can.

“Have you eaten today?” he asked.

She frowned. “I… think so? Maybe? I had half a granola bar at some point.”

That was answer enough.

Thorne scooped up their daughter, bouncing her gently. The crying kept going. He pulled out his phone one-handed, scrolling through contacts.

“What are you doing?” Ivy asked.

“Calling backup,” he said. “Trust me.”

“Maria Santos,” a warm voice answered after one ring. “I was wondering when you’d call, mijo.”

“Hey, Maria,” he said, relief flooding him. “I’ve got a situation. Two newborns, one exhausted mom, zero sleep. Can you come to the Village?”

She arrived within the hour, a tiny woman in her sixties with sharp eyes and the kind of presence that made both adults and infants listen. She’d been his nanny when he was a baby, long before boarding school and distance.

“Let me see my new babies,” she said, taking his son from Ivy with practiced ease. Within minutes, both twins had gone from full-body meltdown to exhausted whimpers.

“They’re overstimulated,” she diagnosed. “Too many lights, too much noise, too many people. New babies need boring.” She dimmed lamps, lowered blinds, turned off the TV. The apartment instantly felt softer.

Ivy hovered. “But I’ve been reading to them, playing them music, showing them the city from the window—”

“Save the entertainment for when they can sit up,” Maria said. “Right now, they need three things: food, sleep, and calm parents. You want calm babies? Be calm.”

Easier said than done.

“When did you last shower?” Maria asked Ivy.

“Yesterday,” Ivy said. “Or the day before. Time is a blur.”

“Shower. Then eat something real. Then bed for two hours.” Maria’s tone brooked no argument. “We’ve got them.”

“But—”

“They need you rested more than they need you staring at them,” Maria said. “Go.”

Ivy hesitated, then looked at Thorne. He nodded.

“I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

Once the water started running in the bathroom, Maria shifted one baby to a more comfortable position and fixed Thorne with a look.

“She’s a good mother,” she said. “Tired, scared, but good. She would walk into traffic before she dropped one of these babies.”

“I know,” he said.

“And you?” Maria asked. “Do you love them more than your own life?”

“Yes,” he said immediately.

“And their mother?” she added, more gently. “Do you love her more than your own ego?”

“That’s… messier,” he admitted. “I love her more than anyone. But I broke us, Maria. I don’t know if love is enough to fix what I broke.”

“Love is never enough by itself,” Maria said. “It needs proof. Action. Time. You can say ‘I love you’ all day. If you don’t show up at two a.m. when a baby won’t sleep, it means nothing.”

He thought about his father, about negotiations dressed as affection, about a childhood measured in scheduled visits and performance reviews. Maria had been one of the only adults who’d loved him without a balance sheet attached.

“There’s something else,” he told her, lowering his voice. “The company… it might be failing. My father says without the merger it collapses in eighteen months. Hundreds of jobs. Families. Pensions.”

“Do you believe him?” she asked.

“I saw fear in his eyes,” Thorne said. “Real fear.”

“So he built an empire on shaky ground and now wants you to hold it up with your back,” Maria said. “And he is not above using eight hundred families to guilt you into obedience.”

“It’s not that simple,” Thorne said. “Those people didn’t make these decisions. They just need paychecks.”

“What about these two?” Maria tilted her chin toward the babies. “Whose paychecks are you responsible for first? Those eight hundred families or this one?”

He looked at his son’s face, relaxed now, mouth slack with deep baby sleep.

“What would you do?” he asked.

“I’d ask myself one question,” Maria said. “What choice gives these babies their best shot at a healthy life? Not what looks good on paper. What feels right when you stand in their nursery at three in the morning.”

The bathroom door opened. Ivy came out, hair damp, wearing fresh clothes, looking ten percent more human.

“How long was I out?” she asked, blinking.

“Three hours,” Maria said. “They slept like angels.”

“Three hours?” Ivy looked like someone had just told her she’d won the lottery. “They haven’t slept more than forty-five minutes in a row since we came home.”

“They were feeding off your panic,” Maria said. “Babies are sponges. They soak up whatever feelings you splash around. You relax, they relax.”

They ordered pizza that night, paper plates on the coffee table, bottles lined up next to cans of soda. The babies dozed between them in a double bassinet, cheeks flushed.

“Thank you for calling her,” Ivy said quietly when Maria took the babies to the bedroom to set up a longer sleep stretch. “I was… drowning.”

“You shouldn’t have had to do any of this alone,” Thorne said.

She stared at the pizza slice in her hand for a long moment.

“I’ve been thinking about the apartment,” she said finally. “About what happens when they come home from the NICU permanently, when I go back to work, when you’re trying to launch your new company.”

He tensed, instincts bracing for a speech about boundaries, distance, him staying politely out of the way.

Instead, she took a breath.

“I can’t do this alone, not like this,” she said. “They need routine. Stability. Two adults, not one half-functioning zombie. I’ve spent seven months proving I can survive without you. I don’t feel like I need to keep proving it.”

“What are you saying?” he asked.

“I’m saying maybe we should look for a place together,” she said. “Not as a couple magically back together. As co-parents. Separate bedrooms, shared common space. Shared responsibilities.”

He blinked. The idea of living under the same roof again felt both like a dream and a trap.

“Are you sure?” he asked.

“No,” she said, honest as always. “I’m sure that what we’re doing now is not sustainable. And I’m sure they deserve better than parents who are too proud to share an address.”

There was something raw and brave in the way she said it. He felt his chest loosen.

“There’s a building in Brooklyn Heights I know,” he said slowly. “Old brownstone. Family-owned. Landlord screens tenants personally, cares about safety, especially for kids. It’s not cheap, but it’s nowhere near Manhattan penthouse prices.”

“I want to see it,” she said. “I’ll sign my own lease. Pay my share. You don’t get to swoop in and buy me an apartment.”

“I was thinking equal names on the lease,” he said. “Equal say. Equal responsibility.”

She looked at him like she was seeing a new person.

“I also need to tell you something,” he added. “About the company. About my father.”

He told her everything. The bleeding balance sheets. The eighteen-month countdown. The potential implosion of Whitaker Industries and the thousands of people between suppliers and staff who’d get hit in the blast.

“What does your gut say?” she asked when he finished.

“That he’s using this to keep me in line,” Thorne admitted. “But I also know the numbers could be real.”

“And your heart?” she asked.

He looked at the sleeping twins.

“My heart says my first and last job is being their father,” he said. “Not cleaning up his mistakes.”

Ivy nodded.

“Then there’s your answer,” she said. “If Whitaker Industries collapses, that’s on him. Not you. He could have built an honest business. He chose shortcuts. You don’t have to sacrifice our kids on the altar of his ego.”

The next day, he called Miranda.

“I’m done,” he said. “No more stalling. Draw up the documents. I’m walking away.”

“You’re sure?” she asked.

“I’ve never been more sure,” he said.

The Brooklyn Heights brownstone was three stories of red brick, black iron railings, and the kind of tree-lined street that made real estate blogs throw around words like “charming” and “coveted.” From the living room windows, you could see the Manhattan skyline and a slice of the Brooklyn Bridge.

The duplex apartment they toured had hardwood floors, tall windows, a small balcony with just enough room for a couple of chairs and a potted plant Ivy would inevitably adopt.

The landlord, Mrs. Patterson, was a sharp-eyed woman in her seventies with five grown children and a very clear idea of what made a healthy family home.

“I don’t care if you’re married, divorced, or living in some modern arrangement,” she said, handing them the lease. “What I care about is noise after ten p.m. and that babies are safe.”

“The lease is in both your names,” she added, pointing. “Equal. No one can throw the other one out without my say-so.”

“Perfect,” Ivy said.

“Terrifying,” Thorne thought.

They were unpacking boxes in the living room when Mrs. Patterson appeared in the doorway again, looking a little uneasy.

“I should tell you,” she said, “there’s a man in a very expensive car parked across the street. Been sitting there for an hour, watching the building. Nice suit. Bad vibes.”

Thorne’s blood went cold.

“Take the babies to the back bedroom,” he told Ivy quietly. “Now.”

She didn’t argue. She scooped up their daughter from a play mat while he grabbed their son, and disappeared down the hall.

The doorbell rang.

Mrs. Patterson beat him to the front door downstairs, but the familiar voice carried easily up the stairwell.

“I’m here to see my son,” Eldrich said. “You can announce me or move out of my way.”

Moments later, he was in their living room, taking in the modest furniture, the baby gear, the city skyline far more muted than the one from his penthouse.

“Quite a step down,” he said. “The prince of New York shipping hiding in a duplex in Brooklyn.”

“What do you want?” Thorne asked.

Eldrich pulled a tablet from his leather briefcase and swiped. He held it out.

The headline on the financial news site was brutal.

WHITAKER INDUSTRIES ANNOUNCES MASSIVE LAYOFFS

Eight hundred jobs gone. Regional offices shuttered. The stock in freefall.

“You did this,” Eldrich said calmly. “Your refusal to do what needed to be done. Your little emotional breakdown over a woman. This is the result.”

“You chose mass layoffs instead of restructuring,” Thorne replied. “You could have opened the books months ago. Tried to fix this before it reached this point. You chose shock and awe.”

“I chose survival,” Eldrich snapped. “Layoffs buy us time. Time you could use to fix this. New proposal: you come back. You marry Celeste. You sign the merger. In return, every single one of those employees gets their job back. Full benefits. Back pay.”

“And if I refuse?” Thorne asked, though he already knew.

“The layoffs become permanent,” Eldrich said. “The company goes under. And I tell every one of those eight hundred families that my son chose his little Brooklyn experiment over their children’s futures.”

“You’re holding innocent people hostage to get what you want,” Ivy said from the hallway.

She stood there, son in her arms, chin lifted.

“I’m saving a company and a legacy,” Eldrich said. “And if you hadn’t latched onto my son, he’d be doing the same.”

“I told him I was pregnant,” Ivy said, stepping into the room. “I gave him the chance to choose. You took that choice away. You decided for him.”

“The manipulation was in existing,” Eldrich said, eyes narrowing. “In being the kind of woman who makes successful men forget their responsibilities.”

Thorne had heard enough.

“Get out,” he said.

“I’m not finished—”

“Get out of our home,” Thorne said, voice rising for the first time. “You chose layoffs over honesty. You chose your empire over your son. You don’t get to walk in here and pretend this is my fault because I refused to let you arrange my life like a chessboard.”

“You’ll regret this,” Eldrich said. “When the trust fund runs low. When these babies need surgeries your little start-up can’t pay for. When she gets tired of living in a small apartment with a man who gave up everything for a fantasy.”

“Maybe,” Thorne said. “But if I regret anything, it will be my mistakes, not yours. Now get out. And don’t come back.”

When the door closed, the silence in the apartment felt fragile.

“Eight hundred people,” Thorne said, sinking onto the couch. “Eight hundred families.”

“Eight hundred people your father used as bargaining chips,” Ivy said. “This is what happens when someone like him doesn’t get his way. He lights everything on fire and blames whoever won’t hold the matches for him.”

“What if I could have saved their jobs?” Thorne asked quietly. “By going back. By signing.”

“At what cost?” Ivy countered. “You think Eldrich was going to be different this time? That once the merger was through he’d stop pulling strings? He would have owned you. And by extension, us. Forever.”

He closed his eyes. He could still feel the weight of his father’s expectations pressing against his ribs.

“I got a job offer,” Ivy said suddenly.

He opened his eyes.

“A sustainable fashion brand in Manhattan,” she said. “They want me to be their marketing director. Good salary. Flexible hours. Actual meaning instead of just selling people more stuff they don’t need.”

“That’s… amazing,” he said, and meant it.

“The thing is,” she went on, “they want me to start next month. Which means childcare. Commute. Less time with the twins when they’re this small.”

“We’ll figure it out,” he said automatically. “Nanny, daycare, whatever you decide.”

“Or,” she said carefully, “you could be the primary caregiver during the day.”

He stared at her.

“You’re not working right now,” she said. “You’re good with them. You light up around them in a way I’ve never seen. You can work on your new company from home in between nap schedules and diaper changes.”

“You want me to be a stay-at-home dad,” he said slowly.

“I want us to stop pretending there’s only one way to be a family,” she said. “My career matters to me as much as yours does to you. These babies need a parent home. Why does it have to be me?”

He thought about his father’s face if he heard this. Eldrich would probably faint. Or explode.

That alone almost sold him.

“There’s one condition,” Thorne said.

“Of course there is,” Ivy muttered, but she was smiling slightly.

“We do this as equals,” he said. “Your income, my savings, shared expenses. Shared decisions. You don’t become the default parent because you’re the mom. I don’t become the default wallet because I’m the dad.”

“Agreed,” she said instantly.

“And our bedrooms?” he asked.

She hesitated. The air between them tightened.

“We take it slow,” she said. “Day by day. We see if we can rebuild us without pretending the past didn’t happen. If we figure out we’re better as co-parents than partners, then at least our kids will have two parents who respect each other. Either way, they win.”

He nodded. It was the most adult plan either of them had ever made.

That night, after the twins finally passed out in their cribs, he got a call from Miranda.

“The restraining order is filed,” she said. “Your father can’t come within a hundred yards of this address or the hospital. And the FBI would very much like a word about those documents.”

“So it’s happening,” he said. “The investigation.”

“Oh, it’s happening,” she said. “This won’t be fast, but it will be thorough.”

“Any news on the layoffs?” he asked.

“Funny you should ask.” Papers rustled on her end. “A group of former Whitaker employees are forming a worker-owned cooperative. They’re trying to buy a few smaller divisions as the company liquidates. They’re looking for investors with deep pockets and clean consciences.”

“Send me their information,” Thorne said. “Maybe being your father’s son can do some good after all.”

Six months later, the Brooklyn Heights apartment looked like a lifestyle feature in an American magazine about “Modern Urban Families.” Plants in the windows, toy bins overflowing, baby gates at the tops of stairs, coffee mugs left half-drunk on every surface.

Sunlight poured through the living room windows, catching dust motes and the twins’ chubby legs kicking on a play mat. Thorne sat on the floor in jeans and a faded Columbia University T-shirt, bottle in one hand, his daughter in the crook of his arm. His son lay on his belly, grunting his way determinedly toward a plastic giraffe.

Ivy had left for work an hour ago, wearing a blazer and sneakers, laptop bag over her shoulder. She’d kissed each baby, then leaned in and pressed a quick kiss to Thorne’s cheek.

“Good luck,” she’d teased. “If they both nap at the same time, treat yourself to a shower.”

He’d fallen into this new role with surprising ease. His calendar had gone from board calls and investor meetings to nap schedules and pediatric checkups. He learned how to predict which cry meant “hungry” and which meant “I dropped my favorite toy six inches away and life is over.”

In the evenings, when the twins slept, he sat at the kitchen table with his laptop, planning Meridian Logistics—a lean, environmentally responsible shipping company that didn’t treat workers like disposable parts.

The doorbell rang in the middle of an episode of their favorite kids’ show. The jolt that ran through him was reflexive, an old fear he hadn’t fully shaken.

He checked the monitor—the twins were still happily engaged—and peeked through the peephole.

Miranda Chen stood on the front stoop, hair slightly windblown, expression grim in that very particular “I bring big news” way lawyers had.

He let her in.

“The investigation is over,” she said as he closed the door. “Your father has been indicted on fourteen federal charges: tax evasion, bribery, fraud, environmental violations. He’s looking at twenty to thirty years in federal prison.”

He exhaled. He’d expected this. He’d pushed for it. It still hit like another tiny death.

“There’s more,” she said. “Whitaker Industries is gone. The court approved a full dissolution. Assets are being liquidated to pay fines and settle lawsuits.”

He nodded once. There would be think pieces in The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times about the fall of a titan. There would be op-eds about corporate greed and American decline.

None of that was his problem anymore.

“And then there’s this,” Miranda added, pulling a thick manila envelope from her bag. “Three days ago, before he turned himself in, your father signed over his entire personal fortune to a trust for your children. The penthouse, the art, the accounts, everything. It’s all in here.”

Thorne stared at the envelope like it might explode.

“Why?” he asked.

“There’s a letter,” Miranda said, handing him a cream envelope with his name written in a familiar, precise script. “Maybe it’s in there.”

His fingers trembled as he broke the seal.

Son,

By the time you read this, I will be in federal custody. I will not ask you to forgive me. I do not deserve it.

I have spent my life believing that love is a vulnerability and that control is safety. I thought I was protecting you by hardening you, by removing every variable, by cutting out anything that might hurt you.

In doing so, I became the thing I feared most. Weak. Not in business, but as a man.

I stole seven months of your children’s lives from you. I burned the evidence of their existence because I could not bear the thought of you choosing them over the company.

You chose them anyway.

Watching you walk away from the empire I built, watching you build something of your own from scratch, forced me to see what I had become. Not a great man. A frightened one.

I cannot give those stolen months back. I can, however, give your children something else: the chance to grow up unburdened by the weight of my mistakes.

I have signed everything over to them. This money is not a chain. It is a tool. Use it to build a different kind of legacy. One that makes the world better than you found it.

Be the father I did not know how to be. I am proud of the man you became in spite of me, not because of me.

Your father,
Eldrich

Thorne read it once. Then again. By the third time, the words blurred.

It wasn’t an apology the way most people meant it. There were no “I’m sorry”s. Eldrich didn’t know how to say them.

But there was something else: recognition. Accountability. A surrender he’d thought his father incapable of.

“How much?” he asked finally, voice rough.

“Roughly four hundred million,” Miranda said. “Your kids will never have to worry about college or buying a home unless they want to. You’ll never have to take a client you don’t believe in. You could fund Meridian ten times over and still have more than enough to be generous for a few lifetimes.”

He laughed once, short and disbelieving.

“Celeste Carmichael has been trying to contact you,” Miranda added. “She says she has information about your father’s last months. I told her you’re a little busy with diaper duty.”

He snorted.

His phone buzzed on the counter. Ivy’s name flashed.

He picked up immediately.

“I’m coming home early,” she said. Traffic and city noise hummed in the background. “We need to talk.”

“About what?” he asked, heart lurching.

“About us,” she said. Her voice was serious but not scared. “And about what comes next.”

He looked around the apartment. Toys on the floor. Coffee cups in the sink. Two babies on a blanket, one chewing on a soft book, the other trying to pull his sock off.

Miranda watched him, reading his face.

“Whatever she wants to talk about,” she said, slinging her bag over her shoulder, “remember something, Thorne. You’re not defined by your father’s money, or by how much of it you accept or give away. You’re defined by what you choose. And for the first time since I’ve known you, you’re actually choosing.”

He nodded.

After she left, he sat down on the floor between his children. His son immediately grabbed a fistful of his shirt. His daughter reached for his hand, her tiny fingers curling around his thumb with that same fierce little grip he’d felt in the NICU months ago.

“Whatever happens,” he told them softly, the sounds of Brooklyn drifting in through the open window, “I pick you. Every time.”

In the distance, over the East River, Manhattan’s towers glinted in the late-afternoon sun. Somewhere up there, on a high floor behind floor-to-ceiling glass, his old life was being dismantled by federal agents and lawyers in suits like his used to be.

Down here, on a floor scattered with toys and baby blankets, something new was being built. Slower. Messier. Far more valuable.

The key turned in the lock. Ivy stepped in, wind in her hair, city in her laugh, eyes taking in the scene in one sweep.

“Looks like everyone survived the day,” she said.

“Barely,” he said. “We had a standoff over a spoon.”

“I hope the spoon lost,” she said, kicking off her shoes.

He stood, heart suddenly hammering harder than it had in any boardroom.

“So,” he said, “let’s talk.”