Vanessa shoved Mia down backstage right before her performance.

We rented a small house on the edge of town—modest, quiet, far from the estate we had lost. It was cramped and simple, but it was ours. Within those walls, Viktor could not touch us.

But outside… everywhere we turned, his influence reached. Michael was locked out of his own offices. Sarah was followed whenever she left the house. I received threatening letters almost daily. We were being watched. Hounded. Pushed toward surrender.

But we did not surrender.

We spent every waking moment searching for proof—anything—that could establish my identity. Julian visited us, bringing what few records he had managed to keep hidden, but even those had been redacted or damaged. Viktor had been thorough.

One rainy afternoon, as I sat going through the boxes Julian had salvaged from the fire, I found something. A small, charred notebook. The cover was burned away, but the pages inside were still partially legible.

It was our father’s private journal.

I turned the pages carefully, my hands trembling. Most of it was gone. But toward the back, a section remained—written in his own hand, dated just days before he died.

*‘I have entrusted the truth to the one place no one would ever look. Not in safes. Not in vaults. Not in documents. But in the very place where it all began. Beneath the foundation of the summer house. Beside the remains of the fire that tried to erase everything.’*

My breath caught.

*‘There lies a locket. Inside it, a lock of Elena’s hair. And a lock of our daughter’s hair. Together. They will prove who she is. And they will prove that the man who calls himself family… is nothing but a thief.’*

I stood up so quickly the chair fell over.

“Michael! Sarah!”