Chapter 2: The House of Paper**
The manor grew suffocatingly quiet as Clara left without another word, the heavy oak doors clicking shut with the finality of a gavel. Julian knelt before the young girl. Up close, Mia’s yellow sundress showed small, hand-stitched repairs along the hem—threadwork he recognized instantly. Elena had always mended everything with bright golden thread.
"Who brought you to the city, Mia?" Julian asked, his voice softer than he had ever heard it.
"A nurse from the hospice," Mia said. "She bought my bus ticket. She said I had a right to look my father in the eye before the state put me in a home."
Julian felt an icy fury rising against his own bloodline. The monthly checks he had signed for nearly a decade had clearly never reached Elena. His late father’s estate attorneys had assured him she was well cared for on the condition of absolute privacy. It was a lie manufactured to scrub his past clean for high-society matchmaking.
Julian led Mia upstairs to the guest suite. He watched her carefully place her worn sneakers by the door, treating the marble floors with timid reverence.
"Are you going to send me away?" Mia asked, clutching the locket against her chest.
May you like
"No," Julian answered, looking at the small reflection of himself in her hazel eyes. "I spent eight years running from the truth. I am not running anymore."
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