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If Arthur Vexley killed his own child⁠—

I always knew he was sick.

I knew he was cruel. Ruthless. A man who would sacrifice anything if it kept the empire standing. A man who can order pain without blinking. But he draws the line at family. He’d never order the death of Samson over a woman. Cain would do it, but Arthur would never order it.

Yet it appears he did exactly that. To a baby, no less.

The bastard is even sicker than I thought.

But the next thought nearly undoes me.

Am I really all that different from him? I’ve learned to be merciless in business. How simple would it be to move it into the rest of my life?

“Nathaniel?”

Ella’s voice cuts through the roar in my head.

I turn. She looks exhausted. Beautiful. Terrified.

Something inside me twists.

If my father wouldn’t hesitate to kill his own illegitimate son, he will not hesitate to kill one of his maids.

Especially a maid who just helped take out his head housekeeper and bury her in the woods. A maid who has captivated one of his sons.

Ella is not safe in Vexley House.

I drive the shovel into the dirt again, harder than necessary. “We need to finish,” I say.

“I know.”

“We finish now.”

“Nathaniel—”

“Then you leave.”

She goes still, holding the handle of the shovel. “What?”

I throw another mound of dirt over Audrey’s grave. “There’s a place.”

“What place?”

“A safe house.”

“A…what?”

“It’s not far,” I say. “Remote enough. Hidden enough. Off the books.”

“Off whose books?”

“Everyone’s.”

“You have a safe house no one knows about?”

“Yes.”

“Your father?”