Sunlight streamed through the grimy windows, illuminating dancing dust motes.

Blake woke up on the floor. Her body was stiff.

She checked Elias. His fever had broken. He was sleeping deeply, his breathing even.

A loud banging on the steel door echoed through the loft.

"Miss Blake! We know you're in there!"

It was Lee. The Foley family's Chief of Staff.

They had tracked her phone before she ditched it. Amateur mistake.

Blake glanced at Elias. He was hidden behind a folding room divider.

She opened the door. Lee stood there, flanked by two hulking security guards.

"The Duke is furious. Come quietly," Lee sneered. He looked at her dirty nightgown with disdain.

Lee reached out to grab her arm. His grip was disrespectful, bruising.

Blake grabbed his thumb. She twisted.

Lee yelped, dropping to his knees as the pressure on the joint became unbearable.

The guards stepped forward, hands reaching for their belts.

"Take one step, and I break his finger," Blake warned. Her voice was calm, almost bored.

The guards hesitated. They looked at Lee's pained face.

"I am the Duchess of Harrison," she whispered in Lee's ear.

"Touch me again, and you lose the hand."

She released him. Lee cradled his hand against his chest, eyes wide with fear.

"I need a ride to Foley Manor. My car is... indisposed."

"Wait, you want to go back?" Lee asked, confused.

"I have business with my father. Drive."

She grabbed a trench coat from the rack near the door. It was her mother's old one.

She put it on, buttoning it to hide the stained nightgown.

She glanced back at the divider. Elias was still safe.

She stepped into the hallway. Her head was held high.

Lee scurried to press the elevator button for her.

They entered the black town car waiting outside. The leather seats smelled of lemon polish.

Blake sat in the back. She checked her reflection in the window. Her eyes were cold steel. The victim was dead.

The car sped off toward the Foley estate.

The car pulled up to the Foley estate. It was a sprawling gothic mansion that loomed against the grey sky.

Blake exited before the driver could open the door.

She marched through the double doors.

In the drawing room, her father, Fulton, and his wife, Connie, were having tea.

"You disgrace!" Fulton bellowed, standing up. His napkin fell to the floor.

Connie looked at her with faux pity. "Oh, poor dear. Having an episode?"

They were trying to frame her escape as a mental breakdown. Standard procedure.

Blake ignored them. She walked to the head of the table and sat in Fulton's chair.

She poured herself a cup of tea from the silver service.

"This tea is cold," she said.

She tipped the cup. The brown liquid poured onto the Persian rug.

Connie gasped. "That's a silk rug!"

"And I'm a human being, not a broodmare," Blake replied.

Fulton slammed his hand on the table. The china rattled.

"You go back to Hardin now! He is threatening to pull the merger!"

"Let him," Blake said calmly.

"I'm here for my mother's trust fund."

Silence descended on the room. Heavy and suffocating.

Fulton turned red. "That money is managed by the family."

"Managed? Or embezzled?" Blake asked sharply.

"I want full access. Today."

"Or what?" Connie sneered. "You have no power."

Blake pulled a folded paper from her coat pocket. It was a printout of a bank routing number she had recalled from memory.

"This routes to the Caymans, doesn't it, Father?"

Fulton's eyes bulged. "How did you..."

"I have the ledger," Blake lied smoothly.

"I know about the tax evasion on the import business."

Connie looked at Fulton nervously. Her hand went to her pearls.

"You wouldn't dare," Fulton hissed.

Blake leaned forward. Her eyes were dark.

"Try me. I have nothing left to lose."

Fulton paced the room. His hands were shaking.

"You are ungrateful. We raised you!"

"You isolated me and sold me," Blake corrected.

"The IRS offers fifteen percent to whistleblowers," she added casually.

"Do the math, Connie. That's more than the trust fund."

Connie grabbed Fulton's arm. Her nails dug into his suit jacket.

"Give it to her," she whispered loudly. "We can't afford an audit right now."

Fulton glared at Blake with pure hatred.

"Fine. But you are cut off from the family."

"Disowned. No inheritance. No name," Fulton spit.

"Draft the transfer," Blake commanded.

Fulton called his private banker on speakerphone. His voice trembled with suppressed rage.

Blake dictated the account number. A generic secure account she had set up in her mind years ago.

She watched the confirmation on Fulton's iPad.

Ten million dollars transferred out of the family pool.

"It's done. Now get out," Fulton said.

"Not yet. I need the patent deeds," Blake said.

"Mother's inventions. The biometric sensors."

"Those belong to Foley Corp!" Fulton argued.

"They belong to the creator. Give me the physical deeds."

Fulton walked to the wall safe behind a painting of a hunt. He punched in the code.

He threw a leather folder at her. It slid across the table.

Blake caught it. She checked the contents. The schematics were there.

"Pleasure doing business," she smirked.

"You are dead to us," Connie said.

"I was dead the moment you married him," Blake replied.

A notification pinged on Blake's phone-the one she had recovered from Lee.

The money had cleared.

She stood up, clutching the folder.

"One last thing," she said, stopping at the door.

"Tell Carissa I said 'Happy Honeymoon'."