The last thing Gwen wanted to think about was the impending steel merger, which was why protestors had flooded the courtroom that awful morning.

“Oscar’s plan is bigger than just Carnegie Steel,” Chester said. “He wants to swallow up a bunch of other steel companies so he can corner the market. The new corporation will be called U.S. Steel, and it’s destined to make us all richer than Midas.”

He continued talking, but Gwen’s attention always wandered during tedious bank discussions. She was about to stroll over to join her grandfather’s elderly sisters beneath the canopy when Oscar interrupted.

“Gwendolyn, a moment, please,” her uncle said, gesturing her toward the port side of the yacht.

She drew alongside him, and Oscar glanced around to be certain they were alone before speaking.

“I heard back from the detectives I sent after that man you saw in the courtroom.”

Her heart skipped a beat. “Yes?”

“He’s nothing more than a malcontent steelworker. He’s originally from Pittsburgh, but now he’s in Philadelphia, where he leads the welders’ union in the shipyards. He loves stirring up trouble in the press. Here’s an example.”

He handed her a newspaper folded open to an article about the merger that would create U.S. Steel. An underlined passage quoted Mr. Liam Malone of the local union.

It’s bad enough having a bloodsucker like Andrew Carnegie controlling the nation’s biggest steel company, but if the Blackstones buy him out to create U.S. Steel, we won’t just have Andrew Carnegie bleeding people dry in Pittsburgh. There will be a hydra-headed monster strangling the workingman all over the country. I intend to fight this unholy alliance with every breath in my body.

Gwen turned her attention back to Oscar. “We already knew he was a union man. What else have you got?”

“His father was Crocket Malone,” Oscar said. “Crocket was a felon who brought his son up to follow in his disreputable footsteps. When Liam was twelve, the police caught him and his father setting fire to a steel mill in Pittsburgh. Two months later, they were arrested for throwing rocks through the mill foreman’s window, and a baby was hurt. Like father, like son. He’s not one of us.”

“But is that proof that he couldn’t be my brother?” she pressed.

“No, but there’s plenty of other evidence. The steel union in Pittsburgh awarded Crocket Malone a stipend in 1866 for the birth of a child. That’s about when Liam Malone would have been born, and he doesn’t have any brothers and sisters. He is Crocket Malone’s first and only child.”