The words on the screen burned brighter than the city lights outside. ‘O’MALLEY ‘DEATH TRAP’ Meeka’s calm evaporated, replaced by a glacial fury that settled deep in her bones. The text message from Gema glowed on her phone, a second front opening in a war she hadn't wanted. ‘Ty wants to go to Bonelli’s house. Alone.’

  “I told you,” Tommy said, his voice laced with smug satisfaction. He jabbed a finger at the television screen where the reporter was now interviewing a concerned-looking woman who claimed her son’s school had planned a field trip. “You sent sheep to deal with a wolf. Now he’s eating us alive on the six o’clock news.”

  “I don’t need this right now, Tommy,” Meeka said, her voice dangerously quiet. She didn’t look at him. Her eyes were locked on the news report, on the carefully chosen words designed to incite fear and outrage. ‘Structural integrity… critically compromised… public endangerment.’ Bonelli hadn’t just filed a report; he’d written a script and handed it to the media.

  She turned to Ashley. “Kill that screen. Get Gema on the line. Now.”

  Ashley nodded, her fingers a blur on her tablet. The television went dark, plunging the penthouse into the soft glow of its ambient lighting. A moment later, Gema’s voice, crisp and professional, came through the office’s secure speaker system. “Ma’am.”

  “What is Ty’s status?” Meeka probed.

  “In the vehicle, heading back toward Weston. He is agitated but secure. He is aware of the news report.”

  Meeka could picture it perfectly. Ty, trapped in the back of an armored car, his face illuminated by his phone, watching his name being slandered. The fury inside her sharpened to a fine point. “He is not to leave the estate. Under any circumstances. Use whatever means are necessary to ensure that, Gema. Am I clear?”

  “Crystal, ma’am,” Gema replied without hesitation.

  “And Gema,” Meeka added, her voice softening just a fraction. “Keep him away from the news.”

  “Working on it,” the bodyguard replied, and the line went dead.

  Meeka took a long, steadying breath, the air feeling thin and sharp in her lungs. The public wound. Bonelli had bypassed their lawyers, their diplomats, their money, and their veiled threats. He had gone straight for the softest target he could find: her son’s reputation. He was attacking the one clean thing she had ever built.

  “You see?” Tommy pressed, unable to let it go. “This is what happens when you try to play nice. This is a mess.”

  Meeka finally turned to face him, her eyes like chips of green ice. “This is not a mess, Tommy. This is an escalation. And we will meet it.” She looked at Ashley. “Get the board back online. Eddie and Quinn are to report from their current location. Get everyone else in this room in ten minutes.”

  Ashley simply nodded and began tapping. Tommy opened his mouth to say something else, but the look on Meeka’s face made him think better of it. He sank back into his chair, a grim smile playing on his lips. He knew what was coming. The time for talking was finally over.

  In the back of the sedan, Ty felt like a caged animal. The car was a luxurious prison, silent and smooth as it sped down the highway toward the gilded cage of the Weston estate. He had tried to get out back at the restaurant, to tell Buach to take him to Hudson, but Gema had moved between him and the door with a quiet, unyielding finality.

  “This is ridiculous,” Ty said, his voice tight with anger as he stared at his phone. A news alert had popped up, and he’d clicked it before Gema could tell him not to. His own graduation photo stared back at him from the screen, next to a headline that made his stomach clench: ’Astro-Physicist Heir Builds ‘Death Trap’ Museum, Town Inspector Warns’.

  “My mother put you up to this, didn’t she?” Ty accused, looking at Gema in the passenger seat. “She told you to bring me back.”

  “My job is to ensure your safety,” Gema answered, her eyes fixed on the road ahead. “Going to the house of a man who holds a public grudge against your family is not safe.”

  “So I’m just supposed to sit here while this guy destroys my reputation? While he calls my work, my life’s work, a death trap?” He threw his phone onto the seat beside him in disgust. “This is what I’ve tried to avoid my whole life. Being treated like a fragile piece of glass because of who my mother is. Because of who the family is! I can’t even fight my own battles.”

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  Comet, sensing his distress from his spot on the floor, rested his heavy head on Ty’s knee and whined. Ty absent mindedly stroked the dog’s fur, the simple act doing little to calm the storm raging inside him.

  “Eddie and Quinn tried to handle it their way,” he muttered. “With lawsuits and money. And that just made it worse. I wanted to talk to him. Just talk. Maybe if he saw it wasn't some corporate project, that it was personal…”

  “It’s personal for him, too,” Gema said, her voice even. “That’s the problem.”

  The car turned onto the long, private road leading to the estate. The familiar sight of the high walls, the guard posts, and the cameras that watched their every move had never felt so suffocating. He wasn’t going home. He was being returned to lockdown. The news report echoed in his mind, and a cold dread washed over him. He wasn't just fighting for his museum anymore. He was fighting for his own name. And he was losing.

  Ten minutes later, the O’Malley leadership board was reassembled. Most were physically present in the penthouse, their faces grim. Eddie and Quinn appeared on the large screen at the end of the table, their images sharp and clear, looking weary from their car.

  “Report,” Meeka commanded, her voice leaving no room for pleasantries.

  Eddie O’Malley looked older than he had that morning. The charming diplomat was gone, replaced by a man who had stared into the face of an unbreakable vendetta. “He can’t be bought, Meeka. He can’t be reasoned with, and he can’t be intimidated by legal threats.”

  “He told us to our faces that he will not stop,” Quinn added, his usual slick confidence shaken. “He blames the family for his brother’s disappearance. He said, and I quote, ‘You took my family’s future. I’m going to take yours.’ The man is a zealot. Henderson, the town manager, is too terrified to move against him. Our legal and diplomatic channels are closed.”

  A heavy silence filled the room. This was the official confirmation of what Meeka already knew. The smart way had failed.

  “And now he’s gone to the press,” Sean Doherty growled, his big hands clenched into fists on the table. “He has publicly branded an O’Malley project a ‘death trap.’ He’s attacking our integrity. Our honor.”

  “He’s attacking a child of the Clann,” Elizabeth said softly, but her voice carried more steel than Sean’s. “He is attacking Tadgh directly. There are lines that cannot be crossed. This is one of them.”

  Tommy leaned forward, his eyes boring into Meeka. “So? What’s the play now, Meeka? More lawyers? Another friendly chat? Or are we finally going to solve the problem?”

  Meeka’s face was unreadable. She listened, her gaze moving from the defeated expressions of Eddie and Quinn on the screen to the impatient anger of Tommy and Sean, to the quiet, unwavering certainty in her Aunt Liz’s eyes. They had tried to contain this, to keep the violence and the shadows of their world from touching Ty’s creation. But Bonelli had dragged it into the light for all to see. He had forced her hand.

  Ashley stepped forward again, her expression grave. “It’s getting worse. The story has been picked up by the national wire services. #OMalleyDeathTrap is trending on Twitter. There’s a protest being organized on social media for tomorrow morning in front of the museum.”

  Meeka felt a cold knot tighten in her stomach. Protesters. More cameras. Ty’s name and face plastered everywhere, linked to this lie. Her son, who just wanted to study the stars, was being pulled into the mud because of her. Because of a choice she had made to eliminate a lout named Rico Bonelli. The past was never past tense. It was a debt that inevitably came due.

  She looked at the faces around the table. They were all looking at her, waiting. For years, she had pushed the family forward, into a new, more legitimate era. She had built a structure of rules and votes to move beyond the simple, brutal calculus of her uncle’s reign. But in this moment, looking at the public shaming of her son, she knew that some problems didn’t have a place on a spreadsheet or a legal brief. Some problems required the old ways.

  Her decision settled, cold and clear. It was not a failure of her leadership, but a recognition of its limits. Her legitimate power had failed because she was facing an illegitimate enemy, one who fought with emotion and chaos, not reason and rules. The time for negotiation was over. The time for a definitive answer had come.

  She stood up, her movement silencing any further debate. The authority in her posture was absolute, the Matriarch in full command.

  “Quinn, Eddie. Your work in Hudson is done. Come home,” she ordered. Her eyes swept over the rest of the board. “Tommy, you were right. We tried it the smart way. It’s now time to execution the fast way”

  She paused, letting the admission hang in the air. Then, she turned her head slightly, her gaze finding the one person in the room who had remained silent through the entire meeting. The one who was not a diplomat or a lawyer or an administrator, but a weapon.

  Caitlyn Doherty, the Angel of Death, met her gaze. Her expression was neutral, but her eyes held a flicker of understanding. She had been waiting.

  Meeka’s voice was devoid of all emotion, a simple, flat command. “Caitlyn. Go to Hudson. Take your team.”

  She didn’t need to say more. Caitlyn gave a single, sharp nod. It wasn’t a promise. It was a statement of fact.

  “End this,” Meeka said.