The boys were holding the maid like they were afraid someone would rip her away.

The declaration crashed into the room like a physical blow. Victoria froze, her hand remaining suspended in mid-air above the maid’s shoulder. For a fraction of a second, her mask slipped, revealing a calculating, cold terror before she quickly smoothed her expression back into one of outraged concern.

"She's insane," Victoria breathed, backing away toward the dining room doorway. "Andrew, listen to her! She's making wild accusations! She’s mentally unstable! I brought her in from the city agency because she had stellar references, but she's obviously delusional—"

"Silence!" Andrew roared, standing up so fast he knocked his heavy oak dining chair to the floor. The sound echoed through the high ceilings of the mansion.

He had spent four years living as a shadow of a man—a hollow shell operating Vance Enterprises by day and drinking himself into stupors by night, surviving only for the sake of his sons. He had allowed Victoria into his life because she was the only link left to Clara, the woman who stepped in when he was drowning. But in a single minute, the entire foundation of his reality had fractured.

Andrew turned to the security guard standing nervously in the hallway. "Marcus!"

"Yes, Mr. Vance?" the guard stammered, his hand resting on his holster.

"Lock the estate gates. No one enters. No one leaves. Disarm the staff and secure the perimeter. If Miss Victoria attempts to leave this property, detain her."

"Andrew! You can't be serious!" Victoria screamed, her poise completely shattering. "I am your fiancée! I am the vice president of your company! You are taking the word of a homeless beggar over me?"

"Search her purse," Andrew commanded Marcus, ignoring Victoria's screeching as the security guard stepped forward and respectfully but firmly confiscated her designer handbag. "And get Dr. Mercer here immediately. Private call. Tell him it’s an absolute emergency."

Andrew turned back to the floor. He knelt down again, taking both of Clara's hands in his. Her fingers were rough, callous, and cold—so different from the soft hands of the concert pianist he had married. "Clara... please. Look at me."

She finally looked directly into his eyes. The fear in her expression was profound, a deep-seated terror that seemed etched into her very bones.

"I don't know everything that happened," she whispered, her voice gravelly, as if her vocal cords had been damaged. "My memory... it didn't come back all at once. For two years after the fire, I didn't even know my own name. I was in a state facility three hundred miles away... listed as Jane Doe."

"The fire at Pine Crest," Andrew said, his throat tight. "The local police said you were trapped in the master bedroom. They found burnt remains... they said the medical records matched..."

"The dental records were swapped," Clara said, tears flowing silently down her cheeks. "Someone put me in the back of a delivery van before the house was set ablaze. I woke up in a private clinic with severe smoke inhalation and head trauma. When I finally started remembering things... when I remembered your face, and the boys... a man came to my room."

She shifted her gaze briefly to Victoria, who was now being held in the doorway by Marcus.

"He showed me photos," Clara continued, her chest heaving. "Photos of Leo and Toby sleeping in their cribs. Photos of you at work. He said if I ever approached you, if I ever tried to reclaim my life, a 'freak accident' would happen to the children. He said you were happy now... that you had moved on with Victoria. He said I was a ghost, and ghosts stay buried."

Andrew felt a cold, lethal fury blooming in his chest, a sensation so sharp it burned away four years of fogged grief. He pulled Clara up from the floor, wrapping his arms around her waist and burying his face in her neck. She smelled of cheap lemon soap and laundry detergent, but underneath it, faint and unmistakable, was the scent of sweet rain and lavender that had defined his youth.