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.

Before we touched the fireplace, Campbell insisted on sending Lily to a secure federal safehouse outside Boston, accompanied by two armed marshals. Saying goodbye to her tore at my soul.

"Are we playing another game of hide-and-seek, Mommy?" Lily asked, holding her stuffed rabbit tightly against her chest as she stood by the unmarked SUV.

I knelt in the snow, brushing a stray curl from her forehead. "Just for a couple of days, baby. Remember what I told you? You are my greatest treasure. Nothing in this world is ever going to hurt you. Mommy has to finish some grown-up work with Campbell, and then we are going to build our new home."

"Will Grandma be there?" she asked in a tiny voice.

My heart tightened, remembering Eleanor's sneering voice at Christmas dinner: *“Take that burden out of my house.”*

"No, sweetheart," I said, kissing her cold cheek. "Grandma is never coming back. You only have people who love you now."

She hugged my neck fiercely, her small arms giving me more strength than any army could provide. Once the SUV cleared the gates, I turned back to the manor.

Campbell had brought two forensic technicians equipped with ground-penetrating radar. For two hours, they swept the massive granite stones of the fireplace, until the equipment let out a steady, high-pitched whine over the central hearthstone.

"There's a void beneath the main lintel," the technician reported. "Depth: eighteen inches. Reinforced steel casing."

Using hydraulic jacks and diamond-tipped chisels, they carefully lifted the five-hundred-pound granite slab. Beneath it lay a vintage fireproof lockbox, sealed with heavy solder and stamped with a Swiss insignia from 1977.

Campbell used a blowtorch to break the seal. Inside lay thick reams of paper: bearer bonds, printed on watermarked cotton paper, each stamped with the seal of the Union Bank of Switzerland, along with a brass key etched with the coordinates of a private vault in Geneva.

"This is it," Campbell said quietly. "Julian’s original leverage. The entire capital reserve of the 1978 syndicate."

I looked at the fortune that had cursed my entire life. "Julian didn't want Eleanor back because he loved her. He wanted her because he thought she had this."

"And now he's sitting in a federal interrogation room, completely unaware that you hold every card," Campbell said. "Do you want to see him, Emma? Legally, you don't have to. But the U.S. Attorney says he’s demanding to speak with you."