“Well, they are, technically, but…”

“But what really concerns them is not my family’s tragedy, but what it means for the Cabals. Two Cortez brothers dead, the third…unavailable, the CEO in mourning and the bastard rebel son in charge.”

“Um, pretty much.”

I swore.

Sean’s lips twitched. “I always thought that was the one word you didn’t know.”

“The last twenty-four hours have expanded my vocabulary.”

The Nasts would be closely followed by the two other Cabals—the Boyds and the St. Clouds. All of them wanting reassurances that we were still the leader of the Cabal world. All of them ready to whisk the title out from under us if we showed any sign of weakness.

As the elevator touched down, my knees jiggled and, for a moment, it seemed as if the floor was about to vanish beneath my feet. A wave of exhaustion set my hands trembling.

I couldn’t deal with this. I was in over my head. Out of my league. Choose your cliché.

This was not my world. I fought this world. And now I was being asked to save it from imploding. Everything in me said “let it implode.” But if the Cortez Cabal crashed, the institution itself would not disappear. The jackals were already circling, ready to divvy up the corpse.

I stepped from the elevator and made a call upstairs.

“Members of the Nast Corporation will be arriving shortly. Please see that they are shown to the boardroom and served lunch. Have my cousin Javier attend to them during the meal and answer their questions, and I will be there within the hour.”

“I’m sorry, Lucas,” Sean said when I hung up. I knew he meant it. He might be a Nast, but he was Savannah’s half-brother and the only member of her family who acknowledged her, much less attended to her. Over the last few years, his loyalties had shifted away from his family business—he was still a VP, but he was only going through the motions, eyes on the horizon looking for other opportunities.

“Is there anything I can do?” he asked.

I was about to say no, then glanced at the pad of paper still clutched in my hand. “The special dispensations department.”

“What about them?”

“Who are they, what do they do and what other department head could I temporarily put in charge?”

He smiled. “Can’t promise anything—the Cortez setup might not be exactly the same as ours—but I’ll give it a shot.”