My mother called my six-year-old daughter “a burden” at Christmas dinner, so I took her presents and walked out—but by New Year’s, Grandma was begging for a second chance.

In the federal detention annex in Plattsburgh, New York, Eleanor Vance sat on the edge of a stainless-steel cot, wrapped in a coarse gray wool blanket that smelled of industrial disinfectant.

Her manicured fingernails were chipped down to the quick. The designer silk scarf she had worn on Christmas Eve was sitting in an evidence locker down the hall, along with her platinum wedding band and her gold Cartier wristwatch.

The heavy iron door swung open with a screech. A guard stepped aside to admit an elderly man in a bespoke cashmere overcoat, his silver hair immaculate, carrying a slender leather briefcase.

Eleanor surged to her feet, her eyes lighting up with desperate hope. "Charles! Thank God. Did you post the bail bond? The magistrate is out of his mind. I have pulmonary hypertension—I cannot spend another hour in this concrete sewer—"

The man didn't sit down. He didn't offer his hand. He simply opened the briefcase, removed a single sheet of watermarked parchment, and laid it on the metal table.

"I am not Charles, Eleanor," the man said smoothly. "Charles was dismissed from the firm at midnight. I represent the primary executor of the Lucerne Covenant."

Eleanor’s voice caught in her throat. She looked at the signature block at the bottom of the document. Her eyes widened in absolute, paralyzing horror.

"No," she whispered, backing into the wall until her spine hit the cold cinderblock. "No. He died. Julian said he was dead."

"Julian was an idiot who mistook his mother’s petty cruelty for tactical intelligence," the lawyer said, his voice as flat and emotionless as a ledger. "Mr. Vance is very much alive. And he is profoundly disappointed in your performance."

"I did what he asked!" Eleanor cried out, her shrill voice echoing against the cell walls. "I isolated Emma! I made sure she had no financial resources! On Christmas Eve, I executed the public repudiation protocol in front of seven witnesses! The girl was rejected from the bloodline hearth!"

"You executed it so clumsily that Emma fled with the child before the digital biometric consent could be logged," the lawyer replied, leaning over the table. "You drove her into the arms of Claire. And Claire possesses your husband’s private cipher."

"Emma is a coward! She was always weak!" Eleanor’s face contorted into the vicious, familiar snarl that had terrorized Emma for twenty-five years. "She’ll crack! She’ll come crawling back to me the second she runs out of money!"

"She won't," the lawyer said, closing his briefcase with a sharp snap. "Because you are no longer her mother. As of three minutes ago, under Chapter Eleven corporate receivership, the Vance estate in Albany has been seized by the Zurich repository. You have no home, Eleanor. You have no bank accounts. And in forty-eight hours, you will stand trial for Julian’s treason."