Chapter 10A

Kaito worked through the list methodically, the same way he approached everything — ten international elite matchmaking services in all, contacted over the course of a single exhausting weekend, each call opening with the same flat requirements before he’d let the conversation go any further.

Six of the ten didn’t survive the first question. Too soft, too surface-level, more interested in compatibility algorithms than actual due diligence, unwilling to verify anything beyond what a client chose to self-report. He crossed them off without a second thought.

The fourth call of the remaining four connected him to a woman who sounded like she took the question seriously instead of laughing at a teenager on the line.

“Minimum net income, ten million,” Kaito said. “Verified, not self-reported.”

“May I ask the reasoning behind that number?”

“We need to protect family assets,” Kaito said simply, like it was the most obvious thing in the world. “My mother isn’t going to be someone’s exit strategy.”

“That’s ... a very specific number for someone your age to be quoting.”

“If you cannot vet qualified candidates at that level, tell me now and don’t waste my time,” Kaito said, flat. “It’s very simple. Either you can, or you can’t, and I’ll look elsewhere.”

There was a beat of silence — the sound, he suspected, of someone deciding whether to be annoyed or impressed, and landing somewhere closer to the second.

“We can,” she said. “Give me a moment to pull up our top tier.”

“While you’re at it — six foot minimum. Sandy blond, or close to it. Fit. Not gym-obsessed, just put together.” Kaito didn’t hesitate on any of it, reciting the list like he’d been carrying it around for weeks. “My mother is stunning. Whoever we’re considering should be, too. I’m not going to sit across from some guy who makes her look like she’s settling.”

“You’ve thought about this.”

“I think about everything,” Kaito said. “That’s the point. I have three other services running the same search in parallel, by the way. I’ll go with whoever brings me the strongest candidate first.”

That, more than anything else he’d said, seemed to land. “Understood,” she said, something sharper entering her voice. “Give me a moment.”

Over the following two weeks, four services sent Kaito a combined total of eleven profiles. He read every one of them the way he read everything — twice, slowly, cross-referencing what little was publicly available against what each agency had provided, notes kept locked behind three separate passwords in a document only he could open.

He struck down a real estate magnate whose decade-old interview transcript carried, in Kaito’s read, the unmistakable cadence of a man who interrupted people for sport. He struck down a twice-divorced financier whose court filings didn’t offer a version of events he found convincing. He set aside a commodities trader whose declared net worth didn’t reconcile cleanly against two independent data points, unresolved, unwilling to move forward on a gap he couldn’t explain.

Nine of the eleven fell that way, one by one, over the two weeks — each rejection logged, dated, filed, no candidate dismissed without a documented reason he could defend if one of his sisters asked.

It was Lowenstein’s service that called back last, and by then Kaito had nearly resigned himself to widening the search a second time.

“His name is Thomas Nelson Bradley,” Lowenstein said, and there was something different in his voice from the start — less performance, more genuine interest, the tone of a man who’d actually found something he thought was worth the call. “Forty-five. Runs a hedge fund he built with his brother, self-made, no family money behind it. Net worth’s well north of your floor. Six-one, fit but not vain about it. Widower — lost his wife to cervical cancer after a ten-year fight. No children; they’d planned on it but never got the chance.” A pause. “He’s quiet. Understated. The kind of successful man who doesn’t need a room to know it. I held this one back until I was certain, because I didn’t want to waste your time on a maybe.”