Christmas has always been a season of ghosts for the Derell family, but that year, the shadows didn’t just haunt the halls; they took up seats at the table. My name is Rowan Derell, and this is the chronicle of how my family tried to bury their foundation while it was still breathing—and how the man they deemed a relic orchestrated their spectacular downfall.
The snow had been descending since the stroke of noon, the kind of heavy, silent flakes that draped the world in an deceptive velvet. From the towering, triple-paned windows of the Derell Estate, the landscape looked like a postcard of tranquility. Inside, however, the air was thick with the suffocating scent of expensive pine and the metallic tang of unspoken hatred.
The dining hall was a cathedral of gold, silver, and glass. My mother, Lorraine, called it “tradition,” though I’d spent twenty-eight years wondering whose tradition it actually was. Every silver fork was aligned with surgical precision; every damask napkin was folded into a crisp, arrogant peak. My father, Gavin, sat at the head of the table, his posture as rigid as the iron fist with which he ruled the family business. He wore a navy suit tailored so sharply it seemed capable of drawing blood.
