Chapter 1

The air in the underground wine cellar was thick, heavy with the scent of damp earth and aged oak, a perfume so rich it felt like it had weight against my skin. I had come here for the private tasting, expecting the usual corporate gloss of the Szasz family estate’s exclusive events, but when I pushed open the heavy iron door of the sub-level vault, the room was empty save for one figure. My father. He stood near the center of the room, bathed in the flickering, amber glow of a dozen beeswax candles clustered on a long, rough-hewn wooden table. The heat from the candles did little to warm the chill that radiated from the stone walls, yet he looked perfectly at ease, his shoulders relaxed in a way I hadn’t seen since I was a child. He was wearing a crisp white shirt, the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, revealing the forearms that had once carried me on their shoulders to the top of the bookshelf. He was reviewing a ledger, his pen moving in slow, deliberate strokes. The silence here was profound, broken only by the occasional drip of condensation from a barrel and the low