Chapter 4
Elise knew she was sick.
That was no secret.
What she hid from me apparently was.
I opened every cabinet in her old rooms that night.
Not violently.
Carefully.
I had avoided those drawers for two years.
Now grief felt less important than truth.
Rafe found nothing in the dressing room.
Nora found a seam behind the nursery bookshelf.
Inside was one envelope.
My name.
Elise’s handwriting.
My hands shook before I opened it.
Damian,
If you’re reading this, someone finally became desperate enough to search the nursery.
I stopped.
Elise knew.
Years ago.
She continued.
The object in the music box is not valuable by itself.
It proves a meeting happened.
That is why the Sterlings will want it.
I looked toward Camille’s wing.
Then read:
Before we married, I met Camille’s father, Richard Sterling.
Richard died four years earlier.
Old Mafia adviser.
Ambitious.
Dangerous.
Elise wrote that Richard asked her to help build a future alliance between Whitmore and Sterling through marriage.
Not our marriage.
Another.
A future one.
If Elise and I ever had a son, Richard wanted that son pledged to a Sterling daughter.
I almost laughed from disbelief.
Oliver had not even existed.
Elise rejected him.
Richard gave her a small silver token bearing both family symbols and told her to keep it “until Damian understands.”
She kept it only because she feared destroying evidence of the conversation.
The token was what Adrian had taken.
Why care now?
Because Camille and I were engaged.
The Sterlings could use the token to claim Elise herself had accepted a long-standing family bond.
Twist a rejected proposal into proof of alliance.
Not legal.
Not contractual.
Mafia families rarely need paper when enough old men agree on a story.
Then Elise’s letter became personal.
If Camille ever enters your life romantically, do not punish her for her father’s ambition.
Judge her by what she chooses.
I closed my eyes.
That hurt.
Elise had been fair to the woman now terrorizing her child.
Then the final line:
But if she uses Oliver to finish what Richard started, believe the choice—not the history.
May you like
I looked toward the nursery.
Camille had made her choice.
