I Wished for Someone to Want Me at Christmas, and the Most Feared Man in Boston Heard Every Word

The biting Atlantic wind whipped salt spray against the reinforced windows of Nico’s black SUV as it wound its way through the iron gates of Cliffside Manor—a sprawling, gothic-revival mansion perched precariously on the rocky shores of Newport, Rhode Island. The estate looked like a painting from a nineteenth-century tragedy, battered by gray waves and shrouded in a thick coastal mist.

Clara adjusted her heavy wool coat, sitting tightly beside Nico in the back seat. Throughout the two-hour drive from Boston, the atmosphere inside the vehicle had been thick with unspoken tension. Nico’s bodyguard, parked in a trailing vehicle, stayed in constant radio contact as they approached the looming front entrance of the manor.

The heavy oak doors swung open before they even knocked. An elderly butler in a pristine black suit bowed stiffly. "Mr. Vale. Ms. Vance. Lady Eleanor has been expecting you in the grand library."

They followed the butler down dimly lit corridors lined with disapproving ancestral portraits whose painted eyes seemed to follow their every move. The air smelled of old paper, burning cedar, and sea salt.

When the heavy mahogany library doors creaked open, they revealed a vast, two-story room filled with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves. Sitting by a crackling marble fireplace was a woman in her late sixties, wrapped in a plush emerald shawl. Despite the silver in her hair, Eleanor Vance possessed the same piercing, predatory gaze that defined her brother Julian—though hers was tempered by a profound, weary sadness.

"You actually came," Eleanor murmured, not turning around immediately as she stared into the flames. "Most men would have sent their lawyers, or worse, burned the place to the ground. But you always were your father’s son, Nicholas."

Nico didn't step forward. He planted his feet firmly on the Persian rug, placing himself slightly in front of Clara like a protective shield. "Cut the dramatics, Eleanor. You summoned us to the edge of the Atlantic in the middle of winter. Speak. What do you know about my father's ledger?"

Eleanor finally turned her head, her sharp eyes scanning Nico’s face before drifting to Clara. A faint, melancholic smile touched her lips. "You always were impatient, Nicholas. Just like Thomas. He thought he could outsmart a shark like my father with a simple spreadsheet."

She reached down to a mahogany side table, picking up a heavy, leather-bound book wrapped in a faded red ribbon—a ledger identical to the ones Clara had audited in Boston.

"Your father didn't just find embezzlement, Nicholas," Eleanor said softly, her voice carrying a chilling weight. "He found the blueprint of a hostile takeover. And the man who ordered your family silenced wasn't my father. It was the silent partner holding eighty percent of the Vance conglomerate's shadow accounts."