My niece called me whispering from a closet my parents had latched shut from the outside.

I looked down at the paper resting on the workbench. The black ink stared back at me, stark and official. For a terrifying, suffocating moment, the weight of my father's shadow felt as heavy as it had when I was a broken-spirited teenager trapped in that cold white-marble house. It felt like I had spent seven years running through a maze only to discover the exit led right back to the starting gate.

Evan laughed again, a high, triumphant sound. "Come on, Aaron. Don't look so miserable. You get to keep your little apron, and we get to make you a millionaire. Everybody wins."

I didn't move. I didn't reach for the paper. Instead, I slowly raised my eyes from the desk and looked past them, toward the metal staircase leading up to the mezzanine.

A soft, rhythmic sound echoed down from above. Tap, tap, tap.

Footsteps.

All three of them turned around, startled by the noise.

Standing at the top of the stairs was Leo. He was wearing his favorite blue flannel shirt—the one I had bought him after our first successful month in business—and in his small hands, he was holding the broken walnut dragon. The one Evan had smashed seven years ago.

He had grown so much. The little boy who used to hide behind my legs was now a sturdy, clear-eyed seven-year-old—wait, no, he was fourteen now. Seven years had passed since that night at my parents' house. He was fourteen years old, tall for his age, with the same sharp intelligence in his eyes that I saw every morning in the mirror, untainted by the bitterness that had poisoned our bloodline.

He didn't look scared. He didn't look intimidated. He looked at my father and uncle with the detached curiosity of a scientist examining bugs under a microscope.

"Hey, Dad," Leo said, his voice clear and steady as he walked down the metal steps, one hand sliding along the railing.

"Hey, buddy," I replied, my voice softening instantly, the ice around my heart melting away. "What are you doing awake? I thought you were finishing your math homework."

"I finished it," Leo said, reaching the bottom of the landing and walking straight past my mother and Evan as if they were nothing more than empty coat racks. He stopped beside me, looking down at the legal document resting on the workbench.

Evan sneered, looking down at my son with condescending amusement. "Well, look who it is. Little Leo. Grown up quite a bit, haven't you? Still playing with broken wooden toys, I see."

Leo didn't flinch. He slowly raised his head, fixing his grey eyes—identical to mine, identical to Richard's—on my older brother.

"You're Evan," Leo said, his tone completely flat, devoid of anger, but carrying an absolute, chilling weight. "The guy who breaks things when he's drunk because he's too pathetic to build anything himself."

Evan's smile vanished. "What did you just say to me, you little brat?"

"Language, Evan," I warned softly, not taking my eyes off my son.

Richard stepped forward, attempting to deploy his best grandfatherly charm, though it looked grotesque on his rigid face. "Now, Leo, is that any way to speak to your uncle? We're family. We're just here to help secure your future—"

"You're not family," Leo interrupted, his voice cutting through Richard's practiced speech like a razor. "Family doesn't smash a kid's birthday present and laugh while he cries. Family doesn't try to steal what someone built out of the ashes."

Richard’s face darkened instantly. The mask of civility completely dissolved. "You arrogant, ungrateful little bastard. You have no idea who you're talking to. I built empires while your father was crying over splinters. We own this entire operation. Look at the paper! Your father is legally bankrupt the second we enforce our rights!"

"Do you?" Leo asked mildly.

He reached into the pocket of his flannel shirt and pulled out a sleek, thick manila envelope. He didn't look at my father; he handed it directly to me.

"What is this?" I asked, my fingers trembling slightly as I took it.

"Uncle Evan likes to brag about his corporate connections," Leo said, turning his gaze back to my brother with a faint, knowing smirk that looked terrifyingly like my own reflection. "Too bad he never checks who actually owns the parent company that bought Clara Chen's legal practice last month."

Richard went completely rigid. Color drained from his face so fast he looked like a marble statue. "What... what did you say?"