The red ink seemed to throb beneath the harsh fluorescent bulb of my kitchen.

It had been one year since Thomas Vance was sentenced to life in prison. The triplets were now two years old—boisterous, healthy, and full of endless energy. Leo was already attempting to run across the wooden deck, Luca was fascinated by the captain’s steering wheel, and Lily was sitting on a plush sunbed, carefully brushing the hair of her favorite doll.

I sat under the white canvas canopy, sipping iced tea, watching my family.

For the first time in my life, my mind was at absolute peace. The diner shifts, the overdue notices, the cold, empty crib—they felt like a nightmare from a completely different lifetime.

Roman walked out from the lower cabin, holding a silver tray with fresh fruit and two glasses of sparkling water. He set the tray down, sitting beside me on the bench, wrapping a broad arm around my shoulders.

"You're quiet today," Roman noted softly, pressing his lips against my temple.

"I was just thinking," I murmured, resting my head against his shoulder. "About how close I came to losing everything. If I hadn't dropped that stuffed bear at Bella Rosa... if Leo hadn't looked into my eyes..."

"It wasn't luck, Pamela," Roman said, his voice deep and absolute. "It was blood. It was instinct. My children knew their mother the moment you walked into that room."

Before I could answer, Donovan stepped up the spiral stairs from the lower deck, holding a satellite phone. His expression was unusually grave.

"Boss," Donovan said, keeping his voice low so the children wouldn't hear. "We have a problem."

Roman’s posture instantly stiffened. The peaceful warmth vanished, replaced by the alert posture of a man who never fully let his guard down. "What is it?"

"The Interpol transfer from Milan," Donovan reported grimly. "The private courier transporting Alessandra’s personal effects from her Italian villa was intercepted two hours ago on the highway outside Zurich."

I sat up straight, my pulse spiking. "Intercepted by who?"

"We don't know," Donovan replied, holding out a tablet screen displaying a burn photo of an overturned armored van. "The driver was incapacitated, and the master lockbox—the one containing Alessandra’s private journals from 2022—was stolen."

I looked at Roman. The memory of Thomas Vance’s prison letter flashed through my mind like a stroke of lightning:

Ask him why her private diary was never handed over to the police.

"Roman..." I whispered, looking into my husband's dark eyes. "You told me all of Alessandra’s private papers were seized by the FBI when Vance was arrested."

Roman stared at the tablet screen, his jaw clenching tightly. A flicker of dark, old shadow passed across his eyes—a shadow I hadn't seen since the night we stood in the Drake Hotel ballroom.

"I thought they were," Roman said softly.

"Who else knew about those journals?" I demanded, my voice dropping into a razor-sharp whisper.

Roman stood up from the bench, walking over to the wooden railing, looking out over the vast, empty expanse of Lake Michigan.

"Alessandra didn't act alone when she set up the European accounts, Pamela," Roman said, his voice carrying a heavy, terrifying weight. "She had an older brother."

My blood went cold. "An older brother? Thomas Vance only had one daughter!"

"An illegitimate son," Roman corrected, turning his head to look at me. "Julian Vance. He was disowned by the Senator twenty years ago and banished to Europe. He runs the private asset recovery firms in Frankfurt. If Julian has those journals..."

"He has the original offshore trust keys," I realized, the horror flooding back into my chest. "The keys that link the Voss Logistics global shipping routes to the Vance accounts."

Roman walked back to me, leaning down, placing both of his large hands on my shoulders, looking dead into my eyes with an intensity that chilled me to the bone.

"He doesn't just have the keys, Pamela," Roman murmured. "He has the proof that Alessandra didn't die of a genetic disease."

I stopped breathing. "What?"

"Alessandra didn't die of cancer, Pamela," Roman whispered, revealing the final, terrible secret he had kept locked in the dark. "She was poisoned. Slowly. Over two years. By someone inside her own house."

I stared at him, horrified, my gaze dropping to his hands on my shoulders.

"Who poisoned her, Roman?" I breathed, my heart hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.