The billionaire’s fiancée was burning his silent daughter’s hair when I caught her.

Two weeks had passed since the arrest of Clara Miller and Mark Jensen. The headlines on the financial news networks had shifted from the sensational murder trial of the luxury socialite to routine market updates, leaving the Vance penthouse to fade out of the public consciousness.

Julian spent those fourteen days stripping the penthouse of its cold, minimalist aesthetic. Heavy velvet drapes were replaced with light-filtering linen curtains that welcomed the morning sun. The smart-home surveillance system—the digital nervous system that had recorded every second of Elena's final hours—was uninstalled completely, its servers boxed up and shipped off to a recycling facility.

He hired a child psychologist, Dr. Evelyn Vance—no relation to Marcus—to work with Lily three afternoons a week in the newly renovated nursery. The walls, once painted a stark, clinical white, were now a warm, comforting shade of soft yellow, adorned with hand-painted forest animals that matched the puzzle Lily had struggled to complete the week her world fell apart.

On a crisp Tuesday afternoon, Julian stood by the grand lobby entrance of the building, waiting for the black sedan returning from the state child advocacy center. The car pulled up smoothly to the curb, and the rear door swung open.

Lily stepped out, wearing a simple yellow sundress instead of her usual formal blue dress. Her blonde hair fell loosely around her shoulders, completely obscuring the faint, silvery scar on her forehead where the burn had healed. She looked smaller, but her shoulders were no longer curled inward with defensive tension.

Julian crouched down on the sidewalk, opening his arms without a word.

Lily hesitated for a fraction of a second, her blue eyes scanning his face for any sign of the distant, stressed executive she had known before the tragedy. Seeing only raw, open affection, she ran forward and threw her arms around his neck, burying her face in his shoulder.

""Welcome home, sweetheart,"" Julian whispered, his voice thick with emotion as he lifted her safely off the ground.

""Are we going to stay here, Daddy?"" Lily asked softly against his ear.