Chapter 1

The rain fell in thin, gray sheets, matching the ache in my chest as I stood at the edge of my mother’s grave. The priest’s words blurred into static, my eyes fixed on the polished oak casket. She was gone. Again.

“Elena.” My father’s voice came from behind me, hesitant. Richard Voss, a man who built empires with his hands but couldn’t lift a finger to comfort his own daughter. “Your stepmother wants to say a few words.”

Before I could reply, Marguerite stepped forward, her heels sinking slightly into the wet grass. She wore black, of course—tailored, expensive, immaculate. Her smile was a blade wrapped in silk.

“Thank you all for coming to honor my husband’s first wife,” she began, her voice carrying across the small gathering. “But I think we all know the truth here. Elena has no right to that property. The house was meant for the family—Richard’s family. Not… a reminder of the past.”

The words hit me like a slap. A murmur rippled through the mourners. I felt my face burn, my throat tightening. I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came. I was frozen, the same girl who always swallowed her words to keep the peace.

Marguerite turned away, satisfied, and walked toward a man in a dark suit—the family lawyer. I lingered, heart pounding, and caught the tail of her whisper:

“As long as she never finds it, this is over.”

*Finds what?*

My mother’s house. My mother’s name. I clutched the old letter hidden in my coat pocket—the one she’d left me, the one I’d never fully understood.

Marguerite glanced back at me, and for a moment, I saw something else beneath her triumph. Fear.

Maybe I was powerless. But I was no longer blind.