"One word from my wife and your company walks away with enough to set you up for life!"

I watched the ugly performance of it, and I couldn't help wondering.

When he'd threatened my father into stepping aside all those years ago, had he worn this same face?

"Sorry. A partnership with the Sullivans is beneath me."

I pressed the intercom on my desk.

"Send up two security guards."

They were up fast, and they hauled Bill James back.

His eyes went wide. A man of his standing, and someone had actually dared to lay hands on him.

Then the office door slammed open again.

A tall, lean girl came charging in, early twenties, head to toe in some streetwear label.

She jabbed a finger at my face and started in.

"Who the hell do you think you are, putting your hands on my father? Keep it up and I'll have my mother shut this dump of a company down by tomorrow!"

I looked at the brash young face, and at the brow and eyes that traced the exact line of Bill James's.

And another image cut across my vision.

That rainy night twenty years ago, when I lost two people I loved at once.

The father who'd doted on me, and my baby sister, only a month old.

If she'd lived, she'd be about this age now.

"This is your daughter?"

There was a tremor in my voice I couldn't quite keep down.

"Of course. Yvette Sullivan, my daughter with Kay."

I stared at the two of them. Then I smiled.

"Good."

I stood and looked at Yvette.

"Go home and tell your mother. I'd love to see how she plans to deal with me."

The guards had them out the door soon enough.

I sat back down, picked up the glass of water gone cold, and drained it in one go.

This was only the beginning. I knew that.

After they were gone, I gave my assistant another task.

"Pull everything on Yvette Sullivan. The more detail the better."

The file came quickly.

Yvette Sullivan, twenty-one, college senior, currently interning at the city TV station.

The TV station. What were the odds.

I looked at the file, hesitated a long while, then made the call anyway.

It was answered fast.

"Bas? Why are you calling this late? I thought you said you were swamped today."

Charlotte Joyce's voice, and I went quiet for a few seconds.

She's my girlfriend, and the star producer at the city TV station.

I didn't want to pull her into any of this.

But this was the one thing only she could help me with.

"Do you have an intern over there named Yvette Sullivan?"

She answered right away.

"Yeah. Word is she's the Sullivan Group heiress. How do you know her?"

I wavered, then finally said it.

"I don't want to see her. Can you let her go?"

There was a beat of silence on her end.

She knows me. She knows I'm not the kind of man who makes a fuss over nothing.

"Bas. What happened?"

"Nothing."

I didn't want her anywhere near my past, so I kept my voice low.

"I just don't like that Sullivan family."

She didn't push. She just gave a quick, clean answer.

"Okay. I'll handle it."

I let out a breath. Something in my chest eased, and I was grateful for her.

"I'll come by the station tonight and pick you up."

After work I drove to the city TV station, and I'd barely stepped out of the car when I saw Yvette, two security guards holding her back, still spitting curses.

"On what grounds are you firing me? Because I cursed a few people out on the clock? Let me tell you, my mother is Kay Sullivan. You cross me, you cross the entire Sullivan Group!"

A man stood beside her, trying to reason with her, helplessness all over his face.

"Ms. Sullivan, please calm down. You struck a colleague first. We're only following procedure—"

"Procedure? I am the procedure! I'm telling you, if that little bitch isn't fired today and on her knees apologizing to me, this isn't over!"

That was when Charlotte came out of the building.

She spotted me at once and walked straight over, slipping her arm through mine.

"Wait long?"

"No. Just got here."

I smiled at her, and Yvette caught the whole thing.

The sight of how easy we were together told her everything she needed to know.

"You. It really was you behind all this, Swanson! Getting my brother fired wasn't enough, so you sent someone after me too!"

She tore loose from the guards and came at me with her hand raised.

Charlotte's expression hardened. She stepped in front of me and called the guards over.

"Get her out of here."

The two of them grabbed Yvette and hauled her off.

"Swanson, you think you can come after the Sullivan family? My mother will never let this go. Just you wait!"

Yvette's screaming faded into the distance. Charlotte turned to me, worried.

"Kay Sullivan's been one of the most respected names in this city for years. What actually happened, that you'd do something like this?"

I shook my head. I didn't want to get into it.

That night, I got a call from a number I didn't know and a voice I did.

Kay Sullivan.

Twenty years.

The voice landed before I was ready for it, and something in me clenched, sharp and against my will, the way an old wound does when you forget and then remember.

"So you're the Swanson who runs Bedrock Technologies?"

On the other end, there was a thread of condescension in her tone, like she was sizing me up.

"That's me."

"Who gave you the nerve to go after my children?"

I let out a short, cold laugh and didn't spare her.

"Ms. Sullivan, I think you've got this backwards. The Sullivan Group these days has already been pushed out by the market. Bedrock's in another league. Why would I waste my time targeting a failure?"

"You—"

That tipped her over the edge. In all her life, she'd probably never had someone half her age provoke her like that.

A cold laugh came down the line.

"Fine. Very good. Young and reckless, no idea who you're dealing with."

"You think Bedrock is so untouchable? Let's see how many days you last."

"I'll be waiting."

I said it flatly and hung up.

Kay moved fast.

By early the next morning my assistant came rushing in, phone in hand, his face grim.

"Mr. Swanson, you need to see this."

Number three on the trending list, in plain sight: Bedrock Technologies President Leads a Sordid Private Life.

I scrolled down.

A handful of paid accounts had posted long write-ups, saying a man barely past twenty doesn't land a president's chair without a backer.

Then came post after post, all of it hinting that our core tech didn't hold up, that the whole company ran on marketing and tricked the market.

"Mr. Swanson, several of our partners have already called asking about it." His voice was shaking. "If we don't get ahead of this, they may pull their investments."

Before I could answer, there was a knock at the office door.

An assistant from PR hurried in with a laptop.

"It's bad, Mr. Swanson. Abner Sullivan's posted a video online too."

I took it and looked.

In the video, Abner sat in front of the camera in a sharp suit, walking through the project reports he'd done during his internship one by one.

"These are all the projects I completed during my internship at Bedrock Technologies. Every one of them was my own work. I had the top performance numbers of my intern class, and yet Mr. Swanson fired me in front of everyone, with no reason at all."

He paused, his eyes going faintly red.

"It was only later that I found out two of the female interns had been in private contact with Mr. Swanson. I don't want to assume the worst, but the facts speak for themselves."

The video ended with a side-by-side comparison of Abner and one of those interns.

The caption read: Where did I fall short?

My assistant slammed his hand on the desk.

"This is garbage. That intern handled back-office work. She didn't have a single project metric to her name!"

The head of PR stood there wringing his hands.

"Mr. Swanson, public opinion has turned completely against us. They're all calling it workplace bullying. Maybe you should put out a statement to clear things up?"

I nodded.

"A statement is definitely in order."

But what I put out wasn't a clarification. I filed suit against Abner Sullivan for defamation and damage to the company's reputation.

The move set the Sullivans off all over again.

It didn't take long. Kay Sullivan contacted the TV station and arranged a fully live televised confrontation, then asked whether I had the nerve to show up.

I was about to agree when Charlotte hurried over and stopped me.

"Bas, don't go. Kay's pulled in a whole crowd of media. She's bought off the host and every guest on the panel. They've even scripted the whole thing. The second you walk in, the hit pieces will be everywhere."

I listened to all of it in silence, then asked her one thing.

"Can you get me control-room access for the broadcast?"

She nodded without thinking.

"That part's doable, but—"

"Then that's enough."

I sent Kay a single message.

"I'll be there."

I set the phone down, walked into the bathroom, and looked at myself in the mirror.

The man looking back wore a dark gray suit, standing perfectly straight.

Twenty years. From the night my father died to this moment, I had been waiting for this broadcast.

I spoke softly to my reflection.

"Dad. I finally made it here."