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The envelope was thick, cream-colored, and sealed with old-fashioned wax that had begun to crumble at the corners. / Chapter 5 / 6

Chapter 5 - THE PAINTING IN THE ATTIC

When Gideon returned to the penthouse, the place was entirely silent.

The sprawling rooms felt empty despite the luxury. He walked down the long, carpeted corridor toward Mila’s room, half-expecting her to be gone—expecting it all to have been a fever dream born of guilt and rain.

Instead, the door to the guest art studio at the end of the hall—a room he had never used, filled with drop cloths and unused easels—was cracked open. A warm, flickering light spilled out onto the floor.

Gideon pushed the door open quietly.

Mila was sitting on the wooden floorboards, surrounded by tubes of acrylic paint, charcoal sticks, and stretched canvases that had belonged to Clara. Her small hands were stained bright blue and yellow. She wasn't crying. She was humming a quiet, melancholy tune under her breath as she dragged a brush across a small canvas.

Gideon stepped inside, careful not to startle her.

"What are you making?" he asked softly.

Mila didn't look up immediately. She added one final stroke of white paint to the center of the canvas before turning it toward him.

It was a painting of the Bellevue Galleria at night. The golden lights were blurred by streaks of grey and silver rain, looking like tears running down glass. And right in the center of the wet concrete, standing under a massive black umbrella that swallowed the cold, was a tall, solitary figure holding a small, glowing backpack.

Gideon’s breath hitched.

"Is that me?" he asked, his voice thick.

"That's you when you found me," Mila said quietly, setting the brush down on a rag. "Mommy said you were made of stone, but she forgot that stone can hold up a roof when the storm gets too big."

Gideon crossed the room, dropped to his knees right beside her on the dusty floor, and pulled the little girl into his arms.

She didn't stiffen this time. She didn't hesitate. Her small arms wrapped tightly around his neck, burying her face into the shoulder of his expensive suit, staining the fabric with blue paint and quiet, real tears.

"I'm sorry," Gideon whispered against her hair, the words tearing out of him like jagged glass. "I'm so sorry I wasn't there."

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The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure terminal on my desk flashed a violent crimson. I hadn't slept in thirty-six hours, my eyes burning from staring at columns of ghost figures, duplicate invoices, and shell corporations linked to Dominic Rossi. But the red alert wasn’t from Rossi’s faction. It was an internal security flag originating from the estate’s main vault deep beneath the west wing.

The ink on the emergency audit report was barely dry when the secure ter...

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scattering the light from the chandeliers. The muffled laughter died instantly, replaced by a suffocating, heavy silence that crept outward from the grand staircase.

The glass shattered into a thousand tiny diamonds on the marble, scatter...

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking out the clinical, terrifying silence of the kitchen. Evelyn Crane stood stiffly in front of my mahogany desk, her hands folded over her apron with the rigid precision of someone who had spent decades micromanaging every square inch of my estate. Behind her, Norah hovered near the doorway, clutching her clipboard like a shield.

The heavy oak doors of my private study clicked shut behind us, locking...

"You're here now," Mila muffled against his chest. "Mommy said you'd come if you remembered how to feel."

For the first time in twelve years, Gideon Vale didn't feel like a billionaire, a CEO, or a titan of industry. He felt like a father.

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