Joe Tate didn’t storm into Home Farm with a plan—he stormed in with heartbreak.

The truth had finally landed, hard and irreversible: Kim Tate’s will wasn’t just written… it was final. And when Joe learned who Kim intended to leave the home farm estate to, the ground seemed to tilt beneath him. Lydia Dingle—her cleaner, her closest “friendly” connection—was suddenly positioned as the inheritor of the place Joe had always believed was his birthright. The home farm wasn’t merely property to him. It was identity. It was history. It was the one constant in his life that felt untouchable.

But now it belonged to someone he didn’t think belonged anywhere near the Tates’ legacy.

And the most crushing part? Joe wasn’t discovering this news through peace or patience. He’d been shown it—handled it, reread it, stared at it until the words stopped being ink and started feeling like a threat. Earlier, Graham Foster had made a move. He’d presented the will to Joe with a calm, unreadable face, as if he already knew exactly what it would do to him. Joe had been convinced it was a trick at first—some calculated game meant to rile him up and drive him into conflict with Kim.

But when he held the document in his hands, there was no mistaking it. No twist. No reversal hidden in fine print.

The house he’d always imagined as his future wasn’t being offered to a Tate at all.

It belonged to Lydia.

And once that rage entered Joe’s body, it didn’t leave. It spread—fast, sharp, intoxicating. That same night, he paced like a man trapped in his own mind, circling the same thought over and over: if Lydia was the one standing between him and what he believed he deserved… then the equation needed changing. Not by convincing Kim. Not by negotiating. By removing Lydia from the board entirely.

In Joe’s world, that kind of solution sounded simple.

But simple ideas collide with reality when other people start watching.

Dawn Fletcher—who had sensed something long before Joe said it out loud—caught up with him in the kitchen. Her voice wasn’t pleading. It was steady. It was the voice of someone refusing to let him pretend he didn’t know what he was about to do.

“This isn’t you,” she told him.

Joe scoffed, arrogant enough to believe his anger was proof that he had a right to act out. He tried to shrug her off like she was just another concerned bystander with no real understanding.

But Dawn didn’t back down. She pushed him to talk to Kim directly. To fight for what he wanted without dragging someone else’s life into the wreckage. She reminded him—almost like a moral slap—that money wasn’t everything, even when it felt like the world was built around it.

Joe hated that she made sense.

And by evening, the tension inside Home Farm was thick enough to choke on. Lydia’s voice echoed down the hall as she cleaned—cheerful, loud, unaware. Her singing wasn’t just background noise to Joe. It was an insult. Every note sounded like proof that Lydia could live normally while Joe’s life had been torn open.

He muttered bitterly to himself. “She’s happy.”

And then the atmosphere snapped even tighter as Kim entered the room—poised, composed, perfectly aware that something was wrong. She didn’t ask politely. She didn’t approach like a victim. She marched in like a queen expecting honesty from the people around her.

“You’ve been sulking all day,” Kim observed. “Care to explain why?”

Joe didn’t answer at first. He just stared. His expression hardened, like his face had finally chosen violence even before his words did. Kim pressed again—no secrets in her home, no games she wasn’t part of.

That was it. The last thread that kept Joe’s restraint in place disappeared.

Joe rose, voice sharp, and demanded the conversation Kim had been trying to avoid—whether she realized it or not. He didn’t come to the point quietly. He came to it like a man punching through a wall.

“You want to know what’s wrong?” he snapped. “Let’s talk about your will.”

Kim’s reaction was calm—too calm. Joe noticed it immediately. She wasn’t surprised the way someone is when they’ve been caught. She acted like she’d known this moment was coming.

Ah, she said. I wondered when this would come up.

Joe exploded: you gave Home Farm to Lydia.

And Kim corrected him—cold, controlled. It wasn’t personal, she made it sound. “I gave it to someone I trust.”

Someone who will protect it. Someone who