“It shouldn’t.”

“Good.”

She looked down.

“I need you to believe one thing.”

“I’m not especially interested in beliefs today.”

“Marr approached me.”

Rocco’s expression changed.

“When?”

“A year before we married.”

His stomach tightened.

“How?”

“At a charity dinner.”

“What did he want?”

“At first, nothing obvious.”

She twisted her hands.

“He knew you.”

“So did half the room.”

“He knew things about you.”

“What things?”

“Your routines.

Your father.

Your fear of inheriting his illness.”

Rocco remembered.

After Victor’s death, Rocco had privately undergone genetic screening.

Nothing conclusive.

Yet fear remained.

Every forgotten name.

Every headache.

Every flicker in his vision.

He had wondered whether his father’s illness waited inside him.

“Marr used that,” Rocco said.

“Yes.”

“How?”

“He told me he suspected your father’s illness might run in families.”

Rocco laughed faintly.

“So when my sight started failing, I believed him.”

Celeste nodded.

“You made sure I did.”

“Yes.”

“Why did you start drugging me?”

Her eyes filled.

“You changed the trust.”

There it was.

Rocco had updated his estate plan after disagreements with Celeste.

Not divorce.

But she lost certain automatic controls if he became incapacitated.

“I wanted you dependent,” she whispered.

“Not dead.”

“Comforting.”

“I know how it sounds.”

“No, you don’t.”

She looked down.

“Marr gave me the drops.”

Rocco leaned forward.

“Did he tell you what they were?”

“He said they would temporarily worsen symptoms.”

“You believed him?”

“I wanted to.”

That answer mattered.

Ugly but honest.

“What did he get?”

“Money.”

“How much?”

“Not enough to explain everything.”

Rocco studied her.

“You know about Orison.”

Celeste went still.

There.

Again.

“You do.”

“I saw the name once.”

“Where?”

“Marr’s phone.”

“When?”

“After Maria died.”

Rocco’s body tensed.

“Why were you looking at his phone?”

“Because I was scared.”

“Of him?”

“Yes.”

“You were working together.”

“That didn’t mean I trusted him.”

“What did you find?”

“A message.”

“From?”

“No name.

Just initials.”

“What initials?”

Celeste looked toward her lawyer.

The lawyer nodded once.

Celeste whispered:

“V.K.”

Rocco stared.

“No.”

Marcus, standing nearby, stiffened.

Rocco’s voice sharpened.

“My father was dead.”

“Yes.”

“When was the message dated?”

“Two years after his death.”

Silence.

Rocco thought she must be mistaken.

Then he remembered shell companies.

Doctors.

Altered records.

His father’s private network.

“Could V.K. mean someone else?”

Celeste swallowed.

“There is someone else.”

Rocco frowned.

“Who?”

She looked directly at him.

“Your sister.”

Everything inside him stopped.

“I don’t have a sister.”

Celeste’s expression became almost pitying.

“That’s what your father told everyone.”

Rocco stared.

She continued.

“Her name is Victoria Kelrix.”

Rocco stood.

“No.”

“Rocco—”

“My father had one child.”

Celeste’s voice softened.

“One acknowledged child.”

Memory struck.

Not of a sister.

Of his father burning photographs when Rocco was thirteen.

A young woman in one.

Dark hair.

Victor shouting when Rocco asked who she was.

Rocco had forgotten the incident.

Or chosen to.

“Where is she?”

“I don’t know.”

“Is she alive?”

“I think so.”

“Why would she pay Marr?”

Celeste shook her head.

“I don’t know.”

Rocco turned to Marcus.

“Find her.”

Marcus nodded.

But before he could leave, Ana appeared at the doorway.

Lily beside her.

Ana looked shaken.

“I’m sorry.”

Rocco frowned.

“What happened?”

Ana held Maria’s notebook.

“There’s something we missed.”

She opened to the inside back cover.

A strip of paper had been tucked beneath the lining.

Maria’s handwriting.

One sentence.

If anything happens to me, look for Victoria.

She knows what Marr did to Victor.

Rocco stared at the words.

His father.

His hidden sister.

The same doctor.

The same symptoms.

And suddenly his own poisoning no longer looked like the beginning of the story.

It looked like the latest chapter.

Click NEXT at the end to read the next part.