The rain fell in sheets, the kind that blurred the world into smears of silver and black. The Wills estate, so often cloaked in the polished armor of power, now felt like a mausoleum. Light flickered against the tall glass windows, casting fractured reflections of a man who no longer recognized his own face.

Carson stood alone in the grand hall, the storm outside echoing the chaos roaring inside his chest. His hands were still marked with soot from the burned box he’d ripped open in the ...