“Exactly. Your mother was ill when she wrote that. Everyone knows her final months were confused.”
Marcus ignored her.
The Aster Foundation had once controlled hospitals, research laboratories, schools, forests, and historical properties across Europe. It had been established by Marcus’s great-grandmother after the Second World War.
Officially, the foundation had collapsed after an internal financial scandal.
Its remaining assets were believed to have been sold.
Marcus had been twenty-four at the time. His father had refused to discuss it. His mother had called the collapse a betrayal but never explained what she meant.
“What is the cylinder?” Elara asked.
Marcus lifted it from the compartment.
It was heavier than it appeared. One end contained a narrow opening, and engraved around the rim were the same seven stars.
He remembered a device in his mother’s private study.
An antique phonograph.
The study had remained locked since her death.
Marcus took out his phone.
Sabine watched him.
“Who are you calling?”
“Elias Hart.”
“At this hour?”
“He manages the family trust.”
“He retired.”
“Last month. He still answers my calls.”
Her voice sharpened.
“This is a family matter.”
Marcus looked at Elara’s wounded hand.
“It became more than a family matter when you made my daughter bleed.”
Sabine’s eyes narrowed.
“You’re emotional because you arrived without warning and found a scene you don’t understand.”
“Then help me understand it.”
“She entered a restricted room. She stole from an employee. She damaged family property and invented stories to avoid punishment.”
Elara’s fingers tightened around Marcus’s sleeve.
Marcus felt the movement.
He also saw the fading yellow marks above her wrist.
Finger-shaped marks.
His anger became cold and precise.
“Who dismissed the staff tonight?”
Sabine said nothing.
“Where is the night guard?”
“He was unnecessary.”
“Why are the security cameras offline?”
“The storm.”
“The storm began forty minutes ago. The security system has been disconnected since six.”
Sabine stepped backward.
“Marcus—”
“Where is Agnes Vale?”
“I told you. She moved away.”
“Where?”
“I don’t remember.”
“You accused a woman who served this family for forty years of theft, dismissed her without informing me, and cannot remember where she went?”
Sabine looked toward the corridor.
Marcus noticed.
Someone else was in the house.
He closed the notebook and gave it to Elara.
“Stay behind me.”
A man emerged from between the dead palms.
He had been hiding near the western service door.
Victor Sloane, the financial director of Arden Maritime, wore a dark raincoat. Water dripped from its hem.
Marcus stared at him.
“Why are you in my house?”
Victor looked at Sabine.
That single glance answered more than any confession.
Sabine recovered first.
“He came to discuss an urgent transfer.”
“At midnight?”
“The Asian markets—”
“Stop.”
Victor raised both hands.
“No one wants trouble.”
Marcus gave a humorless smile.
“People who say that usually brought it with them.”
Elara suddenly pointed at Victor’s coat.
“There.”
A corner of white cloth protruded from his pocket.
It was embroidered with the name of the private clinic where Agnes Vale had once been treated for a heart condition.
Marcus crossed the room before Victor could react and pulled out the cloth.
Inside it was a plastic access card.
St. Orison’s Recovery Center.
PATIENT: AGNES VALE.
RESTRICTED WARD.
Marcus looked at Victor.
“Where is she?”
Victor said nothing.
Sabine spoke quickly.
“Agnes became unstable. We arranged care for her.”
“Without telling me?”
“It was safer for everyone.”
“For everyone, or for you?”
The sound of a car reached the courtyard.
Headlights swept across the broken glass ceiling.
Sabine’s composure vanished.
“Who did you call?”
Marcus did not answer.
Minutes later, Elias Hart entered the winter garden with two members of the estate security team and a woman carrying a metal case.
Elias was seventy-two, thin, and severe. His silver hair was wet from the rain.
He stopped when he saw the open compartment.
“So Althea was right,” he said.
Marcus held up the cylinder.
“You know what this is?”
“I know what it may contain.”
“And the foundation?”
Elias looked at Elara.
“The foundation never collapsed.”
Sabine turned away.
Marcus felt as though the temperature had fallen.
Elias continued.
“The public organization was deliberately closed after evidence of embezzlement appeared. The protected assets were transferred into a dormant trust before they could be stolen.”
“By whom?”
“Your mother and Elara’s maternal grandfather.”
Marcus glanced at his daughter.
Elara’s mother, Isabel, had died when Elara was two. She had rarely spoken about her childhood and had no close relatives Marcus knew.