Chapter 17
“I don’t know why.”
“And your brother disappeared the same year I was born.”
“I know.”
Norah’s breathing grew shallow.
“Then why does the ledger say your brother was placed under my mother’s protection?”
Nico had no answer.
For the first time, she saw genuine helplessness in him.
Not the controlled vulnerability he sometimes allowed her to witness.
Not the weary softness of a man returning home after a difficult day.
This was something deeper.
A child’s confusion surviving inside an adult body.
Mara moved toward Norah.
“We need to leave.”
Norah nodded, but she could not make her feet move.
Nico looked at her as if she were the only solid thing remaining in the room.
“I need to know the truth.”
“So do I.”
“I will find it.”
“You have had years.”
“I didn’t know where to look.”
“You had your father’s records.”
“My father destroyed them.”
“You believed him.”
“I was eight years old when Lucian disappeared.”
The words came out with sudden force.
Then Nico lowered his voice.
“I believed everyone who was supposed to protect me.”
Norah saw the boy inside the man again.
The boy who had lost a brother and been handed a story he could not challenge.
The boy who had grown into someone who kept every door locked because he had learned that people could vanish without warning.
It did not excuse the way he had treated her.
But it explained the fear beneath it.
Norah picked up the birth certificate.
“Who wrote my name here?”
“I don’t know.”
“Who blacked out my father’s name?”
“I don’t know.”
“You keep saying that.”
“Because it’s true.”
A sound came from above them.
Not footsteps.
A key turning in the outer door.
Nico’s attention shifted instantly.
His body changed before his expression did.
He moved between Norah and the staircase.
Mara whispered, “Who is it?”
Nico listened.
“Someone else has entered the building.”
“Your people?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my people would have called me first.”
The basement door began to open.
A thin line of daylight appeared at the top of the stairs.
Norah clutched the ledger to her chest.
Nico looked at her.
“Stay here.”
She almost protested, but the words died when she saw the expression on his face.
He was not ordering her.
He was asking her to trust the one instinct he had never learned to silence.