Regina’s fingers tightened around my wrist before I could turn the lock.
“Matthew, don’t.”
The fear in her face stopped me more effectively than force ever could.
Outside, the older woman remained beneath the porch light, one hand wrapped around a red envelope.
She wasn’t pounding anymore.
She simply stood there as if she had already waited years for this door to open.
“Who is she?” I asked.
Regina’s mouth opened, but nothing came out.
That silence answered enough.
I pulled my wrist free and opened the door.
The woman looked past me at Regina.
“You should have told him.”
Regina’s shoulders dropped.
“I was trying to keep him alive.”
The woman gave a bitter laugh.
“That’s what you said about Julian.”
My skin went cold.
She introduced herself as Julian’s mother.
Then she held out the red envelope.
Inside was a photograph of the man I had seen hidden in Regina’s drawer.
Julian.
He was younger in the photograph than I expected, wearing an expensive suit that didn’t quite belong on him.
The resemblance wasn’t physical.
It was something in the posture—the uncomfortable shoulders of a working man trapped inside clothes someone richer had chosen.
Behind the photograph was a contract.
Twelve months.
A fixed payment.
Confidentiality.
Separate rooms.
Public appearances.
And the same clause about death.
I looked at Regina.
“You used the same contract.”
She didn’t deny it.
Julian’s mother reached into the envelope again and removed a medical photograph.
I only looked long enough to see a tiny dark bruise near the base of Julian’s neck.
“He woke up with that two days before he died,” she said.
“He told me he didn’t remember getting hurt.”
Regina closed the front door behind us.
“Please,” she said.
“Not here.”
We moved into the dining room where the meatloaf had gone cold.
The absurd normality of those two untouched plates made everything feel worse.
Julian’s mother placed the envelope between them.
“Tell him the rest.”
Regina looked at me.
For the first time since I’d known her, there was no executive mask, no measured voice, no careful posture.
“My father tied control of his company shares to conditions in the family trust,” she said.
“One of them was a continuous twelve-month marriage before I could exercise the voting rights without the family committee interfering.”
I stared at her.
“So Patrick was right.
You bought Julian.”
Her eyes filled.
“Yes.”
The word hurt more than any excuse would have.
Three years earlier, Regina had needed a legal marriage before a major transfer of control.
