The three older brothers grew up thinking Roxy was made of porcelain because he was spoiled; they never knew he was actually made of glass. Elias had been obsessive about the secret. He had scrubbed Roxy’s digital medical footprint, paying private specialists in cash and labeling the boy's frequent absences as "private tutoring" or "executive retreats." To Leo, Silas, and Jude, Roxy wasn’t sick—he was a prince being groomed in a tower while they were out in the rain. They saw the specialized air filtration in Roxy’s room and the expensive, salt-restricted meals as luxuries, never realizing they were life-support measures for a heart that was missing a valve and struggling against a thinning wall.

Elias’s silence was his greatest mistake. He thought that by hiding Roxy’s condition, he was protecting the boy from being seen as "defective" by his competitive older brothers. Instead, he painted a target on Roxy’s back. He gave the brothers a reason to hate a boy who was actually living in a state of constant, quiet physical agony.

By the time they reached the estate upstate, Roxy’s condition was peaking. The stress of the "business meetings" the brothers had forced him into—the terrifying, cold hands of strangers and the constant gaslighting—had put a strain on his cardiovascular system that his body couldn't handle. His lips had a faint, permanent bluish tint that the brothers dismissed as him being "cold" or "dramatic."

"Stop panting, Roxy. It’s pathetic," Leo snapped as they walked him toward the entrance of the estate. He didn't notice the way Roxy was clutching the doorframe just to stay upright. Inside the estate, the men who had "purchased" his time didn't care about his medical history. They saw a beautiful, frail boy with wide, terrified eyes—a perfect aesthetic of vulnerability. They saw his trembling hands and assumed it was fear, which only emboldened them.

The brothers left him there, retreating to the bar in the guest house. They shared a bottle of expensive bourbon, celebrating the fact that they had finally "pawned" the favorite son. "Dad would have hated this," Silas muttered, staring at the amber liquid in his glass.

"Dad’s not here," Leo countered, though his voice lacked conviction. "He’s the one who made the kid a target. We’re just finishing the job." While they drank, Roxy was in the main hall, surrounded. The air was thick with the scent of expensive cigars and predatory intent. One of the men, a lead investor with a reputation for cruelty, gripped Roxy’s jaw, forcing him to look up. "You're a delicate thing, aren't you?" the man whispered. "I heard you were the miracle child. Let’s see how much you can actually endure."

Roxy tried to speak, tried to tell them his chest felt like it was being crushed by a vice, but his voice was a mere wheeze. His heart began to skip beats, a frantic, irregular rhythm that sent sharp jolts of pain radiating down his left arm. He looked toward the window, hoping to see his brothers’ car, still believing—in his desperate, broken heart—that they were just testing him.