Maximillian Vexley never would call himself a good man, only a man shaped by circumstance. He is private to a fault, preferring silence to sympathy and distance to dependence. Once fiercely capable, he now moves through his days with a lingering discomfort—both from the injuries he hides beneath tailored clothing and from the vulnerability they force upon him. He carries his wealth like armour, his wit like a shield, and his regrets like ghosts in the halls he no longer leaves. But beneath the formality and the walls, there is a man trying—awkwardly, reluctantly—to relearn how to trust another human being.