A weak knock came from behind the reinforced gray door just after Alejandro stopped Victoria and a Vega associate from preventing him from reaching it.

Rafael had not simply retired.

I had exiled him.

Four years earlier, I stripped him of command after he tried to turn three captains against me over northern territory. I let him leave alive because my father had once called him brother.

Now his ring was in Mercer’s pocket.

Salvatore placed it on my desk.

“He says Rafael gave it to him.”

“Where is Rafael?”

“He won’t say.”

I almost smiled.

“He will.”

Isabel caught my wrist before I left.

“Don’t go angry.”

I looked at her.

She had been imprisoned inside my own house for nine months, and she was still trying to keep me from becoming predictable.

That hurt more than she knew.

“What aren’t you telling me?”

She hesitated.

“Rafael came to the door.”

I stopped.

“When?”

“Three times.”

The first visit had been a month after her disappearance. Rafael never entered the room. He spoke through the reinforced door while Victoria stood inside.

“He told me you had already believed I left you.”

My jaw tightened.

Victoria had built that lie carefully. Isabel’s clothes vanished. Her car appeared at an old property. household staff repeated that we had argued privately.

I searched anyway.

For months.

Then hope became humiliation.

And Victoria stepped directly into the wound.

“What did Rafael want?”

“The markers.”

“And when you refused?”

Isabel looked toward Sofia.

“He started asking which child was most like you.”

I felt my entire body go still.

“Sofia?”

She nodded.