“Check everything.”

Security spread throughout the room.

Elena remained at the doorway, breathing heavily.

I walked toward the desk.

A photograph rested there.

New.

Glossy.

Taken recently.

It showed Isabella.

Alive.

Standing beside a small airplane.

Luca stood next to her.

Behind them was a building with no visible sign.

On the back was a handwritten message.

Adrien,

Stop looking for the dead.

Start looking for the living.

— I

My vision blurred.

I ran my thumb over the handwriting.

I knew every curve in her letters.

Every impatient stroke.

It was hers.

Marco leaned closer.

“Boss.”

He pointed toward one corner of the photograph.

Partially visible behind the airplane stood another person.

Only a shoulder.

A hand.

A silver watch.

I recognized that watch.

I had purchased it myself.

For my father’s fiftieth birthday.

“No,” I whispered.

Marco stared.

“That can’t be.”

Elena looked between us.

“Who is it?”

I turned the photograph over again.

There was another line beneath Isabella’s message.

Written so lightly I had nearly missed it.

Ask your father why he never attended his own funeral.

The room seemed to tilt beneath me.

My father had died six years earlier.

I had seen his body. I had stood beside the coffin. I had watched the lid close.

“No,” I said again.

But tonight, the word no had begun to lose all meaning.

Marco placed the photograph beneath the desk lamp.

“This could be manipulation.”

“I identified his body.”

“Adrien.”

“I identified him.”

“I know.”

“I was there.”

Marco said nothing.

My phone rang.

Every security officer in the room became still.

Unknown number.

I answered.

No one spoke.

Then I heard breathing.

“Who is this?”

Silence.

“Isabella?”

A man laughed quietly.

Not Luca.

Older.

My hand went numb.

I knew that laugh.

I had spent my entire childhood trying to earn approval from the man who made that sound.

“Hello, son.”

I nearly dropped the phone.

My father.

Impossible.

“Who is this?”

“You already know.”

“My father is de:ad.”

“So was your wife.”

I couldn’t speak.

Across the office, Marco watched the expression on my face change.

The voice continued.

“You’ve had a complicated night.”

My eyes lifted toward the ceiling.

The children.

“Stay away from my family.”

A quiet sigh followed.

“You always confused possession with protection.”

“Where is Isabella?”

“Alive.”

“Luca?”

“Alive.”

“Where are they?”

“Not yet.”

I tightened my grip on the phone.

“You placed that device in the nursery.”

“No.”

“Then who did?”

“Someone who wanted to discover whether Isabella’s safeguards were still functioning.”

My heart hammered.

“Why?”

“Because your wife is clever.”

Despite everything, there was something in his voice that almost resembled pride.

“She has become extremely inconvenient.”

“You touch her—”

“Adrien.”

One word.

The same tone my father had used when I was twelve and interrupted the adults during dinner.

The familiarity unsettled me more deeply than anger could have.

“I have absolutely no intention of harming Isabella.”

“Then send her home.”

“She isn’t being held.”

I froze.

“What?”

“She has chosen not to come back.”

The words drifted into the room like smoke.

Marco studied my expression.

“What is he saying?”

I ignored him.

“You’re lying.”

“Ask her.”

“Put her on the phone.”

“I can’t.”

“Won’t.”

A pause.

“Perhaps.”

My gaze moved toward the photograph resting on my desk.

Isabella looked exhausted.

But she did not appear restrained.

Neither did Luca.

“Why would she choose to stay away from her children?”

The moment I said it, something in my anger broke.

Something raw slipped through.

My father heard it.