For several seconds, I couldn’t move.

Leandro’s hand remained firmly but gently against my waist as the orchestra continued playing around us.

“Someone in this room knows what really happened to her?”

He nodded.

“Her name was Isabella. She was twenty-eight when she died. She was the only woman I ever intended to marry.”

I looked at the scars covering the left side of his face.

“Was the accident that caused your scars connected to her death?”

His expression changed.

“Yes. Four years ago, someone sabotaged my car during a snowstorm. Isabella was in the pᴀssenger seat. I survived because I was thrown clear of the wreckage. She didn’t.”

He paused.

“At least, that’s what I was told.”

I frowned.

“What do you mean?”

“Her body was never recovered.”

A chill traveled down my spine.

Leandro continued.

“The police declared her ᴅᴇᴀᴅ based on the circumstances. My enemies made sure there was nothing left to investigate. And because I was unconscious for eleven days, I couldn’t challenge anything they told me.”

I stared at him.

“Then why do you believe she’s still alive?”

“I don’t.”

His voice became colder.

“But three weeks ago, someone sent me a pH๏τograph.”

He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small folded piece of paper.

Inside was a pH๏τograph of a woman standing outside a hospital.

Her face was partially turned away from the camera.

On the back, someone had written six words.

SHE WAS NEVER SUPPOSED TO DIE.

My fingers trembled.

“Who sent this?”

“That’s what I’m trying to discover.”

Before I could ask another question, the music ended.

Applause filled the ballroom.

Leandro released my waist but didn’t let go of my hand.

“Stay close to me tonight, Clare.”

“Why?”

“Because the man who arranged your seating is about to approach us.”

I followed his gaze.

The silver-haired gentleman was walking toward us.

He was wearing an expensive charcoal suit, a diamond pin, and the kind of smile that never reached his eyes.

“Leandro,” he greeted.

“Richard.”

The two men exchanged a brief handshake.

Then Richard turned toward me.

“So this is the young lady everyone’s talking about.”

I offered a polite smile.

“Clare Donnelly.”

“Richard Ashford. A pleasure.”

His handshake lasted slightly longer than necessary.

His eyes examined me with an unsettling curiosity.

“Tell me, Miss Donnelly. Have you ever met Mr. Vitali before tonight?”

“No.”

“Interesting.”

He smiled.

“Then I suppose fate has a peculiar sense of humor.”

Leandro stepped slightly between us.

“What do you want, Richard?”

“Business, naturally.”

Richard glanced around the ballroom.

“Perhaps we should discuss it somewhere private.”

“Not tonight.”

“Still refusing to discuss the old accident?”

Leandro’s expression became dangerously still.

Richard chuckled.

“Four years, my friend. Surely you’ve had enough time to accept what happened.”

I noticed Leandro’s right hand тιԍнтen.

“What do you know about Isabella?”

Richard’s smile disappeared for just a fraction of a second.

Then he leaned closer.

“More than you would like.”

He walked away before Leandro could respond.

I watched him disappear into the crowd.

“Who is he?”

“Richard Ashford. He was my father’s business partner. He helped build the company I inherited.”

“Was?”

Leandro looked at me.

“He was also the last person to speak to Isabella before she disappeared.”

My stomach dropped.

“Why is he still here?”

“Because I haven’t found enough evidence to destroy him.”

Twenty minutes later, I found myself standing in a quiet corridor outside the ballroom.

I needed air.

The evening had become too overwhelming, and I was beginning to wonder whether accepting Leandro’s invitation to dance had been a terrible mistake.

I was reaching for my phone when someone spoke behind me.

“Miss Donnelly?”

I turned.

A young woman in a black H๏τel uniform stood several feet away.

“Yes?”

She glanced nervously toward the ballroom.

“Mr. Vitali asked me to give you something.”

She held out a small white envelope.

I hesitated.

“Where is he?”

“He’s speaking with security.”

I took the envelope.

The woman quickly walked away.

Inside was a pH๏τograph.

My breath caught.

It showed Leandro standing beside a woman with long dark hair.

They were smiling at each other.

On the back was a date.

Four years earlier.

And underneath it was a handwritten message.

ASK HIM WHAT HAPPENED TO THE BABY.

My heart began racing.

I looked toward the ballroom.

Leandro was nowhere in sight.

Then my phone vibrated.

An unknown number.

One message.

YOU THINK HE IS THE VICTIM? ASK HIM WHY HE NEVER SEARCHED FOR HIS CHILD.

I read it twice.

Something about the wording felt deliberately cruel.

Before I could process it, I heard footsteps approaching.

Leandro appeared at the end of the corridor.

“Clare?”

I quickly slipped the pH๏τograph into my purse.

His eyes immediately noticed my expression.

“What happened?”

“Nothing.”

“Don’t lie to me.”

His voice wasn’t angry.

It was concerned.

I took a breath.

“Who was the father of Isabella’s baby?”

He stopped walking.

For the first time since I had met him, Leandro looked genuinely unprepared.

“She was carrying my child.”

“Did you know?”

“Yes.”

“Then why didn’t you tell me?”

He looked down for a moment.

“Because I thought the child died with her.”

I swallowed.

“Did you ever search for the baby?”

His jaw тιԍнтened.

“For four years, I have paid investigators in six countries. I have searched hospitals, adoption records, private clinics, and every organization that could possibly have handled an unidentified newborn.”

“Did you find anything?”

He shook his head.

“Nothing.”

I looked at him carefully.

“Then why would someone send me this pH๏τograph?”

His expression changed immediately.

“What pH๏τograph?”

I pulled it out.

Leandro stared at it.

His face went completely pale.

He took the pH๏τograph from my hand, examining the date and the woman’s face.

Then he turned it over.

When he read the message, his fingers began to tremble.

“Where did you get this?”

“Someone from the H๏τel gave it to me.”

“Who?”

“I don’t know.”

He looked toward the ballroom.

“Stay here.”

“No.”

He turned back.

“Clare, listen to me. Someone has been watching you since before tonight. I need to know who.”

“Why me?”

He didn’t answer immediately.

Instead, he studied my face as though trying to remember something.

Then he asked a question that made my blood run cold.

“Did you ever know a woman named Isabella?”

I shook my head.

“No. Why?”

He looked at the pH๏τograph again.

“Because there’s something I haven’t told you.”

He took out his phone and opened an old pH๏τograph.

It showed Isabella standing in front of a hospital nursery.

Beside her was a woman holding a newborn baby.

I stared at the woman.

My breath caught.

I knew that face.

Not personally.

But I had seen it hundreds of times.

It was my mother.

I couldn’t speak.

“My mother?”

Leandro nodded slowly.

“That’s what I thought when I first saw your pH๏τograph in the guest list.”

“How could my mother possibly know Isabella?”

“I don’t know. That’s why I needed you beside me tonight.”

I stepped backward.

“You knew who I was before you asked me to dance?”

“I knew your surname. I knew your mother lived in Wisconsin. I didn’t know whether you were connected to Isabella.”

“So you used me?”

“No.”

His answer came immediately.

“I arranged for your name to remain on that table because I wanted an opportunity to speak with you. But I never expected someone else to interfere.”

I shook my head.

“My mother has nothing to do with your business.”

“Perhaps not.”

He lowered his voice.

“But I need to know why she was standing beside Isabella at that hospital.”

I looked at the pH๏τograph again.

There was a date beneath it.

December 18.

The same date my mother had always told me was the day I was born.

I felt the floor shift beneath my feet.

“That’s impossible.”

Leandro looked at me.

“What?”

“My mother told me I was born on December eighteenth. She always said she gave birth to me in a small hospital in Wisconsin.”

He stared at the pH๏τograph.

Then he looked at me.

“Clare, what year were you born?”

I told him.

His expression changed.

It was the same year Isabella had disappeared.

Before either of us could speak, his phone rang.

He answered immediately.

“Yes?”

A man’s voice came through the speaker.

I couldn’t understand everything, but I heard three words clearly.

“Richard… hospital… tonight.”

Leandro’s eyes hardened.

“What happened?”

A pause.

Then his expression became something I couldn’t describe.

“Lock down the building. Nobody leaves.”

He ended the call.

“What is it?” I asked.

He looked directly at me.

“Richard Ashford just tried to destroy an old hospital record connected to Isabella.”

My heart pounded.

“What record?”

Leandro stepped closer.

“The original birth certificate.”

I felt suddenly sick.

“Whose birth certificate?”

He looked at me for several seconds.

Then he spoke quietly.

“Clare, I think your mother has been hiding something from you for twenty-eight years.”

We returned to the ballroom, but the atmosphere had changed.

Leandro’s security team had quietly surrounded the exits.

Guests were beginning to notice.

Across the room, Blair was whispering urgently to Wesley.

When she saw us approaching, she immediately looked away.

Leandro didn’t bother acknowledging either of them.

He took me to a private office overlooking the H๏τel courtyard.

A few minutes later, his head of security, Marco, entered carrying a thick brown folder.

“Boss. We found the records.”

Leandro opened it.

Inside were copies of hospital documents, pH๏τographs, and an old newspaper clipping.

He read the first page.

Then the second.

By the third, his breathing had changed.

“What is it?” I whispered.

He turned the folder toward me.

The document was a hospital admission record.

MOTHER: ISABELLA VITALI.

CHILD: FEMALE.

DATE OF BIRTH: DECEMBER 18.

And below that, someone had written:

INFANT RELEASED TO AUTHORIZED FAMILY REPRESENTATIVE.

I stared at the words.

“Who was the representative?”

Leandro turned the page.

His eyes stopped at the signature.

For several seconds, he said nothing.

Then he looked at me.

“Your mother.”

My legs nearly gave way.

“No. That can’t be true.”

Marco placed another document on the desk.

It was a pH๏τograph taken outside the hospital on the night Isabella disappeared.

A woman was carrying a newborn baby toward a waiting car.

The woman’s face was partially visible.

It was my mother.

I covered my mouth.

“Why would she do that?”

Leandro looked at the pH๏τograph for a long time.

Then he said something that made the entire room feel colder.

“Because someone wanted Isabella’s child to disappear.”

I looked at him.

“And you think that someone was Richard?”

Leandro closed the folder.

“I think Richard has spent four years making sure I never discovered the truth.”

His phone rang again.

This time, the caller ID displayed a name.

MARGARET DONNELLY.

My mother.

I answered with shaking fingers.

“Mom?”

For a moment, there was only silence.

Then I heard her crying.

“Clare, sweetheart. Listen to me very carefully.”

“Mom, what’s happening? Why is your name on a hospital document with Isabella Vitali?”

Her breathing became uneven.

“Oh, God. He found you.”

“Who?”

She began sobbing.

“Your father wasn’t the man you think he was.”

I froze.

“My father died years ago.”

“No, Clare. I’m talking about your biological father.”

I looked at Leandro.

He had gone completely still.

My mother continued.

“Twenty-eight years ago, I made a promise to a dying woman. I promised I would protect her little girl, even if it meant never telling her the truth.”

I could barely breathe.

“Who was that woman?”

There was a long silence.

Then my mother whispered:

“Isabella.”

I closed my eyes.

“And my father?”

Her answer came so quietly that I almost didn’t hear it.

“Clare, the man standing beside you tonight isn’t just a stranger who wants to help you.”

I looked at Leandro.

My mother spoke again.

“He’s the man who has been searching for his daughter for twenty-eight years.”

The phone slipped slightly in my hand.

Leandro stared at me.

Neither of us moved.

Then my mother delivered the final blow.

“But there’s something else you need to know. Isabella didn’t die in that accident.”

A pause.

“She was murdered because she discovered what Richard Ashford had done.”

The call suddenly went ᴅᴇᴀᴅ.

At that exact moment, Marco’s phone rang.

He listened for three seconds before turning toward Leandro.

“Boss, we’ve got a problem.”

Leandro’s voice was ice.

“What?”

“Richard Ashford is gone.”

Marco swallowed.

“And we’ve just found his car abandoned outside Margaret Donnelly’s house in Wisconsin.”

I looked at Leandro.

My mother was hundreds of miles away.

And someone who had spent twenty-eight years hiding the truth had just found her.

Leandro reached for his coat.

“Clare, we’re leaving.”

“Where are we going?”

He looked into my eyes.

“To find your mother.”

Then he added, almost too quietly for me to hear:

“And this time, nobody is taking my family away from me.”