Vivian raised the strap a second time.

They met at two o’clock in Vincent’s attorney’s office — a quiet room on the fourteenth floor with a long table and a view of the city that Clara spent exactly three seconds looking at before turning her attention to the documents laid out in front of her.

Ferrante, Vincent’s attorney, walked her through it carefully.

The original codicil.

The forged amendment.

The Calabrian property.

The land development application filed by Castellano Holdings eight months earlier — the same month Clara had registered with the staffing agency that, she now understood, had been created specifically to put her in a room with Vincent Moretti under controlled circumstances.

“They wanted to see me,” Clara said slowly.

“Before I could find out about any of this.”

“We believe so,” Ferrante said.

“If you had discovered the property dispute independently and come forward as a beneficiary, it would have been far more difficult to manage.

This way, they controlled the introduction.”

“They didn’t expect Vincent to stop her,” Clara said.

“No,” Ferrante said.

“I don’t imagine they did.”

Clara looked at the original codicil.

At Lucia Moretti’s signature, leaning left, slightly uneven, written by a woman who was running out of time but had not run out of intention.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“We file a challenge to the amendment based on forensic evidence of signature irregularity,” Ferrante said.

“Given the documentation Marco has assembled and the examiner’s preliminary findings, we have strong grounds.

The Castellano firm will likely attempt to negotiate before it reaches a formal hearing.”

“And the property?”

“If the challenge succeeds, the original codicil is reinstated.

You would be named as the beneficiary your grandmother was always meant to be.” Ferrante paused.

“It won’t be immediate.

But the direction is clear.”

Clara sat back in her chair.

She looked at Vincent across the table.

“Your engagement party,” she said.

“I’m sorry about that.

About how it ended.”

“Don’t be.”

“You lost something last night.”

“I lost something I should have looked at more carefully a long time ago,” he said.

“That’s different.”

She nodded slowly.

Then she looked back at the codicil — at the name written there in her great-aunt’s failing hand, the name of a woman she had never met but whose decision had set everything in motion.

Rosa Reyes, née Moretti.

Her grandmother’s name, written by someone who had loved her.

“She remembered her,” Clara said quietly.

“After all that time.

She still remembered.”

“She never forgot,” Vincent said.

“I think that’s what the letters were about.

All those years of letters.”

Clara’s hand came up to the locket at her throat.

She didn’t say anything else.

She didn’t need to.

The call from Castellano Holdings came three days later.

Not from Vivian.

From her father, Domenico Castellano — a man Vincent had known for six years, had shared dinners with, had once considered a future father-in-law.

He called Vincent’s personal number at seven in the morning, which meant he had been awake for some time and had decided that waiting was no longer useful.

“Vincent.” His voice was the same as always — measured, warm at the edges, with the particular confidence of a man who had never spent much time doubting himself.

“I think we should talk.”

“I agree,” Vincent said.

“My attorney is available this afternoon.”

“I was thinking something more informal.

Just the two of us.”

“No.”

A pause.

“Vincent—”

“Domenico, there is a forensic examiner’s report sitting on my attorney’s desk that describes, in specific technical detail, why the signature on that amendment is not my mother’s.

I am not going to have an informal conversation about that.

If you want to talk, it happens through counsel.”

“You’re making this into something larger than it needs to be.”

“You forged my mother’s signature two months after she d*ed.

Tell me what size that is.”

Silence.

“The property has been in dispute for over a decade,” Domenico said finally.

“There were competing claims.

My firm was trying to simplify a complicated situation.”

“By removing a beneficiary your client never agreed to remove.”

“Your mother was not well.

She was being influenced—”

“You told Vivian the same thing.

It wasn’t true then and it isn’t true now.” Vincent stood at his window, looking out at the city.

“My mother knew exactly what she was doing.

She was correcting a wrong that went back thirty years.

You decided that correction was inconvenient, and you removed it.

That is what happened.”

Another silence, longer this time.

“What do you want?” Domenico asked.

The warmth was gone from his voice now.

“I want the amendment withdrawn.

I want a formal acknowledgment that the original codicil represents my mother’s true final wishes.

I want the land development application on the Calabrian property suspended pending resolution of the beneficiary question.”

“And if we don’t agree?”

“Then the forensic report goes to the bar association, and we file in court, and you spend the next two years explaining to a judge why your firm notarized a document with a forged signature.” Vincent paused.

“I don’t think you want that.

I don’t think your other clients want that either.”

The line was quiet for a long time.

“I’ll speak to my legal team,” Domenico said.

“You have until Friday,” Vincent said.

“After that, Ferrante files.”

He hung up.

He stood at the window for another minute.

Then he called Clara.

She picked up on the second ring this time.

“Domenico Castellano just called me,” he said.

“He wants to negotiate.”

“Is that good?”

“It means he knows the position is weak.

Yes, it’s good.”

“What do we do now?”

“We wait until Friday.

And we let him think about it.”

A pause on her end.

“Vincent.

If this works — if the property comes back — I don’t know what to do with it.

I’ve never owned anything larger than the contents of a one-bedroom apartment.”

“You don’t have to decide that now.”

“I know.

I just—” She stopped.