Roman did not sit down.

"Say what you have to say."

Helena pressed her hands flat against her knees.

"When Nora first came to me — before you and she became serious — I had her investigated.

Standard procedure.

I do it with everyone who gets close to you."

"I know."

"What I found was not standard." Helena paused.

"Nora's father.

His real name.

His real history."

Nora's voice was careful and quiet.

"My father passed away when I was nine."

"The man who raised you did, yes." Helena looked at her directly.

"But he was not your biological father.

And the man who was — Nora, I need you to understand that I am not saying this to hurt you — the man who was is Enzo Marchetti."

The name landed in the room like something dropped from a height.

Nora didn't move.

Her face didn't change in the way faces change when people are surprised.

It changed in the way faces change when something they have half-known for a long time is finally spoken aloud.

"That's not possible," she said.

But her voice didn't have the force of someone who believed it.

"Your mother and Enzo Marchetti had a relationship that ended badly before you were born.

She married another man quickly.

She never told you.

I found the documentation — birth records, a private letter your mother wrote that was never sent.

I have copies."

Roman turned to Nora.

"Did you know?"

"No." A beat.

"I don't know.

There were things my mother said when she was ill, near the end.

Things I didn't understand." She sat down on the arm of the sofa, close to Sophie without touching her.

"I thought she was confused."

"She wasn't confused," Helena said.

"And when I discovered who Nora's father was, I panicked.

I thought she was a plant.

I thought the Marchettis had sent her deliberately — to get close to you, to get access to Sophie, to use your own child as leverage against your empire."

"So you separated them," Roman said.

"Without asking me.

Without telling me.

You decided, alone, that my daughter should grow up in poverty rather than risk a connection you invented in your own head."

"It wasn't invented.

The connection is real."

"The threat was invented.

Nora didn't know.

You just told us she didn't know." Roman's voice stayed flat.

"You punished her for something she had no knowledge of."

Helena opened her mouth.

"And you punished Sophie," he said.

"A child.

My child.

For three years."

"I was trying to protect—"

"Stop saying that." For the first time, Roman's voice had an edge.

"Protection means keeping someone safe.

What you did kept Sophie cold and hungry and moving from place to place and believing her father was d*ad.

That is not protection.

That is control.

And you need to stop calling it by the wrong name."

Helena was quiet.

Nora looked at the grey folder still open on the desk.

"The forged letter.

If I'm Enzo Marchetti's daughter — even unknowingly — and you needed a reason to justify what you'd done to us, a letter connecting me to the Marchetti family would be very convenient."

Helena said nothing.

"Did you have it made?" Nora said.

"Yes or no."

The silence went on long enough to be its own answer.

Roman picked up his phone.

He made a call.

Two words: "Come now." Then he hung up.

"Who did you call?" Helena asked.

"Someone who can verify the letter tonight.

And someone who can pull the financial records for every account you redirected the money into." He put his phone in his pocket.

"You have about forty minutes before they arrive.

If there's anything else you want to tell me before then, now would be the time."

Helena looked at Sophie.

The little girl had shifted in her sleep, one hand curled under her chin.

"I love her," Helena said.

"I love both of you.

Everything I did—"

"I know you believe that," Roman said.

"That's the part that makes it worse."

He walked to the window and stood with his back to the room, looking out at the dark grounds of the estate where he had grown up, where he had learned to be the man he was, where his mother had taught him that family came before everything.

He was beginning to understand that she had meant it only in one direction.

Behind him, Nora's phone buzzed again.

Same unknown number.

New message.

*The letter was commissioned eight months ago.

I have the proof.

I'm outside the gate.

Let me in.*