My three-year-old maid’s daughter secretly led me upstairs and showed me the woman I planned to marry threatening her mother and implying she could make the little girl disappear. Vivien thought no one important was listening, but she had made one mistake: the child knew exactly which man in that house everyone feared.

The photograph should have been impossible.

Arthur Bell had represented my father for twenty years before vanishing during a boating accident. His body was never recovered, but the police eventually closed the case.

I had attended his memorial.

Now he was standing in my house, apparently alive, beside the woman I planned to marry.

"Find him," I told Rocco.

"Already trying. The security footage from that hallway was erased."

"By whom?"

"Our systems administrator says someone used your personal authorization code."

I stared at him.

Only four people had access to that code: Rocco, my chief accountant, my private secretary, and me.

"Lock down the system. Nobody knows we're investigating."

That night, I returned to the old wing alone.

My mother's bedroom smelled of dust and cedar. Her portrait still hung above the fireplace, showing the woman who had taught me that power meant nothing if you couldn't protect the innocent.

Behind the painting, I found a narrow compartment.

Inside lay a brass key and a folded note in her handwriting.

Lorenzo, if Arthur returns, trust no one who claims to be protecting your inheritance.

My fingers tightened around the paper.

The safe stood beneath her dressing table. The brass key opened it.

Inside were bank statements, an old photograph, and a sealed envelope bearing my name.

Before I could open the envelope, a floorboard creaked behind me.

I turned.

Elena stood in the doorway.

Her face had gone white.

"Mr. Duca, please," she whispered. "You have to stop looking."

"Why?"