The apartment was in Queens, a fourth-floor walk-up with peeling paint and the distant rumble of the subway vibrating through the floorboards. It was a far cry from the penthouse or the estate, but it was off the grid, rented with cash from the emergency fund Dominic Valerius had set up for Victoria years ago.
William sat on the edge of the sagging mattress, his head in his hands. The weight of the failure was crushing. He had lost the company his grandfather built. He had lost his home.
“I’m sorry,” William whispered into the dark room. “I promised to give you the world, and I gave you this.”
Victoria sat beside him. She didn’t look at the cracked plaster; she looked at him. She took his hands, calloused from the “Silent Winter,” and kissed his knuckles.
“I don’t need the world, William,” she said fiercely. “I spent a year pretending to be someone else in a villa in Italy. I spent months locked in your grandmother’s ‘Golden Cage.’ This?” She gestured to the small room where Leo was sleeping soundly on a makeshift bed. “This is freedom. We are together. We have the truth. And we have the one thing he can’t buy.”
“What’s that?” William asked, looking up.
“Loyalty,” Victoria smiled. “Now, let’s get to work.”