Before My Mom Died, She Told Me I Had Three Rich Brothers in New York—But When I Gave Their Names to the Police, Everyone Went Silent

By Tuesday morning, the house in Gramercy Park had become the central node of a corporate war that the rest of the city couldn't see. Two of Gideon’s personal security operatives stood at the front door, their dark coats zipped to the chin, while three young women from Vanguard’s forensic audit division sat at the long mahogany dining table downstairs, their laptops plugged into a portable satellite terminal.

I sat in the library on the second floor, wearing a dark blue cashmere sweater Julian had bought me from a shop around the corner, my hair washed and brushed into a neat, clean line that fell across my shoulders.

Ethan sat on the floor across from me, his platinum hair uncombed, his expensive phone lying face-down on the rug between his feet. He had cancelled his live streams for three days, his social media accounts completely dark for the first time since he was sixteen.

"My chat is losing its mind, Autumn," Ethan said, his voice quiet as he watched the snow accumulate on the stone ledge of the window. "They think I've been kidnapped. The agency sent three managers to the building yesterday, but Gideon’s security detail wouldn't let them past the elevator lobby."

"Are you going to lose your job?" I asked, holding the warm glass of milk the maid had brought me.

"It’s not a job, Autumn," Ethan said, a short, dry laugh breaking through his teeth. "It’s a machine. I sit in a room with twelve cameras and I talk to people who are lonely. That’s all it is. They like me because I look like I have everything. I have the three-million-dollar apartment, the diamond watch, the sports cars. But when I saw you sitting in that precinct room with that plastic bag... I realized I don't have anything that belongs to me. It all belongs to the Song Group. If I tell them the truth about our mother, the agency will drop the contract before the weekend."

"Then don't tell them," I said gently. "I didn't come here to break your machine, Ethan. I just wanted you to know she didn't forget you."

The door to the library opened, and Gideon walked in. He looked like he hadn't slept in seventy-two hours. His white shirt was wrinkled at the elbows, his tie gone, and his pale gray eyes were bloodshot from looking at the digital spreadsheets. He carried a single sheet of old, yellowed paper in his right hand.

"Harrison found the original filing in the basement of the county courthouse in Portsmouth," Gideon said, his voice dropping into the silent room like a heavy stone. "The custody transfer from 2004 wasn't signed by our mother, Autumn."

Julian stepped into the library from the rear hallway, a glass of water in his hand. He stopped dead. "What do you mean it wasn't signed?"

"The signature on the Scioto County record matches the handwriting on the corporate leases Hector signed for the New Jersey terminals that same month," Gideon said, tossing the paper onto the mahogany desk in the center of the room. "He forged her name on the custody renunciation while she was still in the hospital recovering from the delivery. Our father knew about it, Julian. He used the forged document to clear the stock transfer with the grandfather’s executors before the funeral year ended."

"That’s sixteen years of systemic grand larceny," Julian whispered, his face turning an ash-gray color beneath his dark hair. "And twenty years of human trafficking if you count the state borders."

"It’s more than that," Gideon said, turning his head to look at me, his eyes carrying a sudden, terrible light that looked like the edge of a razor. "Uncle Hector is currently downstairs in the dining room. He came here with two lawyers from the shipping trust. He thinks we're holding an extraordinary board meeting to clear the New Jersey infrastructure bonds."