“No, you don’t.”
She flinched.
I stood because if I remained seated, I might say things that could not be unsaid.
“Dominic,” she whispered, “do you still believe me?”
I looked at the woman I had planned to marry in six weeks.
“I believe you were used,” I said.
Hope flickered in her eyes.
Then I finished.
“I don’t yet know whether you made it easy.”
I left her there.
The house had grown quiet by midnight. Police occupied the front rooms. My attorney slept in a chair outside the study. Nathan had gone to the guesthouse under police knowledge, stripped of access but not yet accused. Claire remained in the library. Staff quarters were guarded.
I should have slept.
Instead, I went to the old portrait hall.
My father’s portrait hung at the far end, larger than necessary, his painted eyes fixed on a future he had expected to control even after death. Vincent Vale had always believed secrets were assets. He collected them, traded them, buried them in trusts and ledgers and whispered obligations.
Now one of those secrets had walked back into my house under the name Owen.
My phone buzzed.
Unknown number.
I answered without speaking.
For a moment, there was only faint static.
Then a man’s voice said, “Hello, brother.”
I closed my eyes.
Owen.
His voice was calm. Educated. Almost amused.
“You hurt Mia,” I said.
“I regret that.”
“No, you regret that she lived.”
A soft sigh. “You always did inherit Father’s talent for ugly interpretations.”
“You never knew my father.”
“I knew him well enough to know he kept me outside the gates while teaching you how to own them.”
“Where are you?”
“Close enough to know Nathan gave you his keys. Touching, really.”
I turned slowly toward the dark windows.
My reflection looked back at me.
Behind it, the grounds were black.
“You’re watching the house.”
“I watched it for years before you noticed.”
My grip tightened on the phone.
“What do you want?”
“The same thing I wanted before your housekeeper complicated matters. Recognition. The ledger. And what Father promised my mother.”
“Then why involve Claire?”
He laughed softly. “Claire involved herself by wanting to belong. People who want badly are easy to guide.”
“She didn’t know?”
“Not enough to be useful in court, if that’s what you’re asking.”
Even in that moment, part of me registered the precision of his answer.
Not enough.
Not innocence.
Not guilt.
Something between.
“Celeste?” I asked.
“Better at her job than most people you pay.”
“Victoria Lang?”
“A name that opens doors.”
“And Nathan?”
A pause.
The first.
Then Owen said, “Nathan is loyal to a fault.”
“To me?”
“To the version of you he needs to exist.”
Before I could press him, he continued.
“You found the photograph.”
“Yes.”
“Then you know Father acknowledged me.”
“In writing on the back of a picture is not acknowledgment. It’s cowardice with a pen.”
Owen was silent for a moment.
When he spoke again, the amusement had thinned.
“Careful, Dominic. You and I may disagree on many things, but we share the same dead man.”
“What do you want now?”
“Open the ledger.”
“It’s with the police.”
“No, it isn’t.”
I went still.
He knew.
Detective Penn had photographed the ledger but left it sealed in my safe pending a warrant dispute my attorney was still handling. Too many old legal complications, not enough immediate probable cause to seize the entire book. That had been Samuel’s argument.
Someone had told Owen.
Or he had eyes inside the house.
“You have until morning,” Owen said. “Read page one hundred twelve. Then decide whether you want police, lawyers, and your pretty fiancée learning what Father really built.”
“You think I’m afraid of old secrets?”