“You do.”
Julian looked toward the stairwell.
“I heard my mother mention that number once.”
“When?” Audrey asked.
“The night our father died.”
The corridor seemed to narrow around them.
Seraphina stared at her brother.
“Dad died at home.”
“That is what we were told.”
Her expression changed from anger to disbelief.
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying I woke up that night and heard Mother arguing with someone in the kitchen. She said, ‘Move everything to 314 before morning.’”
“Who was she talking to?”
“I don’t know. I was fifteen.”
Audrey thought of the files, the hidden payments, the network that predated her investigation.
“What was moved?”
Julian shook his head.
“I never found out.”
Seraphina stepped closer.
“You hid this from me?”
“I hid a lot of things from myself.”
His voice broke.
The honesty did not erase what he had done.
But Audrey saw the frightened boy Seraphina had described—the one who had taken books into the wine cellar while his family argued above him.
He had never stopped hiding.
He had simply learned to hide in expensive suits, polished smiles, and obedience.
Audrey’s anger remained.
But it changed shape.
