By sunrise, the rain had stopped, leaving the streets of Brooklyn washed clean under a crisp autumn sky.

I hadn't slept a single minute. Instead, I had spent the night making calls from Carolina’s small balcony, quietly mobilizing my own network of allies.

At 8:00 AM, a fleet of three black SUVs pulled up outside Carolina’s apartment building.

Out stepped Arthur Vance—my personal attorney, a terrifyingly sharp man who had represented me during the initial incorporation of my trading algorithms—accompanied by four armed private security guards.

When I opened the apartment door, Arthur stepped in, holding a thick leather briefcase.

“Silas,” Arthur said, nodding respectfully before turning his eyes to Carolina and the baby. “Miss Hayes. It is an honor to finally meet you.”

“What is happening?” Carolina asked, wrapping her robe tighter around herself as she looked at the security guards standing in the hallway.

“What is happening, Carolina,” I said, stepping beside her, “is that we are leaving this apartment today.”

“Silas, I can’t just pack up my life in an hour—”

“You aren't packing, my dear,” Arthur interrupted smoothly, opening his briefcase on the kitchen table. “My team will pack every item in this apartment and store it in secure facilities. Right now, you, Silas, and young Gabriel are being relocated to Silas’s private estate in Bedford.”

Carolina looked at me, bewildered. “Bedford? You sold the Bedford house during the divorce!”

“I told my mother I sold it,” I corrected with a quiet smile. “I bought it back through a private trust six months ago because I couldn't bear the thought of anyone else living in the place where we used to talk about having children.”

Carolina’s breath caught in her throat.

“Furthermore,” Arthur continued, pulling out a stack of legal documents, “we have spent the last six hours filing emergency petitions in Manhattan Supreme Court. We have issued a formal injunction against Eleanor Lockwood for tortious interference, fraud, and unlawful surveillance.”

“Surveillance?” Carolina asked, her face turning pale.

Arthur pulled a sleek black device from his pocket—a small radio frequency scanner. “My security team swept your apartment building twenty minutes ago, Miss Hayes. We found two GPS tracking devices attached to the undercarriage of your vehicle, registered to a private detective agency on Eleanor Lockwood’s retainer.”

Carolina dropped into a chair, her hands trembling violently. “She was watching me?”

“She was monitoring your pregnancy,” I said, my voice cold with anger. “She was waiting to see if you would try to reach out to me after the baby was born so she could intervene before I found out.”

I knelt beside Carolina’s chair, taking her cold hands in mine.

“They will never touch you again, Carolina,” I promised softly. “From this moment on, you and Gabriel are surrounded by people who report directly to me. Not my mother. Not the firm. Me.”

Carolina looked at the legal papers spread across the table, then at Arthur, and finally down at Gabriel, who was waking up in his bassinet, stretching his tiny arms.

Slowly, the exhaustion in her face yielded to a quiet, powerful resolve.

She looked up at me, her dark eyes fierce and clear.

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“If we are going to fight her, Silas,” Carolina said, “we do it together. No more secrets. No more letting other people speak for us.”

“Together,” I agreed, kissing her forehead.