“I’m trying to place him.”

Elena had moved toward the opposite side of the room.

“Mr. Moretti.”

Something in her tone made both of us turn.

She was staring at a corkboard.

Pinned across it were photographs of the triplets.

But they weren’t recent pictures.

Ultrasound images.

Hospital scans.

Copies of Isabella’s prenatal records.

A chill moved through me.

Then I noticed Sophie.

There were photographs of her as well.

At two years old.

Three.

Walking into the estate beside Elena.

Playing near the staff garden.

Sleeping in her stroller during a summer gathering.

Elena stepped backward.

“Why are there photographs of my daughter?”

Marco began searching the room more quickly.

Drawers.

Shelves.

Folders.

I continued staring at the board.

Beneath Sophie’s photographs was a printed card.

SUBJECT S-4.

Beneath the triplets:

SUBJECTS M-1, M-2, M-3.

Elena pulled the card from the board.

“What does this mean?”

“I don’t know.”

“She is four years old!”

“I know.”

“No, you don’t understand.”

She turned toward me, and for the first time since I had known her, Elena spoke not as someone who worked for me, but simply as a mother.

“There are photographs of my daughter sleeping.”

Her voice trembled.

“Someone watched her while she slept.”

I looked at Sophie’s smiling photograph. Then at my children’s ultrasound images.

The anger that rose inside me this time felt different.

Not heated. Not uncontrolled.

Focused.

“Marco.”

“I’m already securing the estate.”

“No one leaves.”

He nodded once.

“No one.”

Elena lowered herself into a chair.

I crouched beside her.

“We’ll discover who did this.”

She covered her face with both hands.

“I should never have brought Sophie here.”

“You gave her a home.”

“I brought her into this house.”

“And tonight she protected my children.”

Elena lowered her hands again.

Her eyes were wet.

“She’s four.”

“I know.”

“She thinks the worst thing in existence is peas.”

A helpless laugh slipped from her.

“She hides them underneath mashed potatoes and believes I never notice.”

For the first time that evening, something inside my chest relaxed.

Only slightly.

“She told Marco he was scared.”

“He is scared.”

“I heard that,” Marco said from across the room.

Elena wiped beneath her eyes.

Then she looked directly at me.

“Find them.”

“I will.”

“Not because you are Adrien Moretti.”

I waited.

“Because you are their father.”

The words struck harder than any order ever could have.

For years, I had built my life around the belief that strength meant control.

Control the room. Control the information. Control the money. Control what people understood. Control what they feared.

But eight months of fatherhood had shattered that illusion.

Babies did not care about influence.

They cared whether you came when they cried.

Whether you held them. Whether you remained.

And Isabella—

wherever she was—

had apparently understood something I hadn’t.

She had created a trail intended not for the head of a syndicate.

But for a husband.

A brother.

A father.

“Boss.”

Marco stood beside one of the computers.

“I found something.”

The computer required no password.

Its desktop held only one folder.

HOME.

Inside were dozens of short audio files.

Every recording had been dated within the previous ten months.

Marco opened the earliest one.

Isabella’s voice filled the room.

“If you’re hearing this file, then I managed to activate the archive.”

I closed my eyes.

Her voice.

Not from an old wedding recording.

Not from a message saved before the accident.

A message she had made after I believed she was gone.

“I’m sorry.”

Those two words nearly shattered me.

“I know what you were told. I know what you believe happened on the lake. And I know what my disappearance will do to you.”

She paused.

“And I know you’ll be furious that I allowed you to believe it.”

I opened my eyes.

Elena watched me silently.

Marco remained still.

Isabella continued.

“But if I had come back, the children would have become leverage against me. And if I had told you everything before knowing who we could trust, you would have torn Chicago apart looking for answers.”

Marco glanced in my direction.

I ignored him.

“I needed you to do the one thing you dislike more than anything.”

A faint, sorrowful laugh came through the speakers.

“Wait.”

I almost smiled.

Almost.

Then Isabella’s tone changed.