Franz’s west wing study was insulated from the sounds of the house. Awards lined the shelves — early indie trophies alongside the heavier industry recognition that had come later. The framed movie posters covered the walls in careful arrangement, and the desk was cluttered with scripts and contracts, the daily evidence of Noah Hart’s other life. The door was closed.

Five people had gathered in their usual formation, though the room was different now. Gone were the cinderblock walls and fluorescent hum. Only the warm glow of Franz’s desk lamp remained, and the particular weight of five people who had been through enough together to skip the formalities.

Gilbert spoke first. He had his tablet with him, the screen tilted toward the group. "The PI sent an update about Arianna Brennan’s younger brother."

Arianne’s expression gave nothing away. She had been waiting for this since the double date, since she had given Gilbert the name Howard, since her grandmother had sat in her study and laid out decades of secrets across a polished desk.

"His name was Howard Brennan. He was ten years old when Arianna died." Gilbert paused, his voice steady but carrying weight. "She was pregnant when she jumped. She lost the child first—a miscarriage, the PI believes—and then she took her own life. Howard was the one who found her body. A ten-year-old boy, alone in the apartment with his dead sister."

The room absorbed the information in silence.

Franz’s hand found Arianne’s. She allowed the contact without acknowledging it, her focus remaining on Gilbert. "How did the PI confirm the pregnancy?"

"A medical record. A clinic visit approximately two months before her death. She was examined, the pregnancy was confirmed, and she was given prenatal guidance. No father was listed in the file." Gilbert didn’t elaborate on who the father must have been. He didn’t need to elaborate. Gabriel Summers had been her lover for five years. The pregnancy was his, and he had married Ysabella Conway while Arianna was carrying his child.

"She was going to keep the baby," Arianne said.

"It appears that way. The clinic records indicate she was planning to continue the pregnancy."

"Three months. She was three months pregnant when she lost the child and jumped, and her ten-year-old brother found her body."

"Yes."

Arianne said nothing more. Her face revealed nothing. But the room had gone utterly silent around her.

"After Arianna’s death," Gilbert continued, "Howard was taken into child services. There was no other family willing to take him, or none that could be located. He spent three years in state care before he was adopted at the age of thirteen. The adoption records are sealed. The PI believes it may take considerable time to access them, and there is a real possibility they will never be opened. Some sealed adoptions remain closed permanently. We may never know whether Howard assumed a new name or identity through the adoption process."

"He would have changed it," Arianne said. Her voice was even, almost clinical. "I have never encountered the name Howard Brennan before. Not in any business context, not in the Conway records, not anywhere. If he had kept that name, I would have found him by now. He assumed a new identity through the adoption and used it to build everything that followed."

"So he could be anyone," Julian said. "Someone you have met. Someone you have worked alongside. Someone who has been in the same room as you, and you would have no way of knowing."

"Yes."

The word hung in the air. Arianne did not elaborate, because elaboration was unnecessary. The man who had spent decades trying to destroy her, who had bled the Conway trust, who had aimed Dominic at her like a weapon, who had killed Alex and Layla to cover his tracks—that man could be anyone. A business associate whose hand she had shaken. A face she had seen a hundred times and never examined closely. Someone who had been watching her for years.

"How old would he be now?" Franz asked.

"Mid-forties," Gilbert said. "Arianna was in her early twenties when she died. If Howard was ten at the time, he would be in his early to mid-forties today. Old enough to have built a career. Old enough to have established himself in whatever identity he assumed. Old enough to have spent decades planning his revenge."

Nate leaned forward. "What about tracing him through the child services system? The placements before the adoption, the institutions that handled his case. Those records would predate the sealed adoption and might still exist."

"The PI is pursuing that angle. It is slow work. Decades-old bureaucracy, paper trails that may have been destroyed, facilities that have closed or merged, staff who have retired or died. The records may still exist somewhere. They may not. The PI will keep us informed."

Julian shook his head. "Thirty years. He has been planning this for thirty years."

"Longer, if you count the years before Arianna died," Nate said. "He was ten when he found her. He carried that for three years in the system. He carried it into whatever home adopted him. He has been carrying it his entire life."

Arianne listened to all of this without interruption. Her hand remained in Franz’s, though she had not looked at him since Gilbert began speaking.

"The motive makes sense," she said. "It has always made sense. A ten-year-old boy finds his pregnant sister dead. The man who caused her death faces no consequences. The family that forced the marriage faces no consequences. The child who is born afterward and given his sister’s name grows up with everything his sister was denied. I have understood the motive since my grandmother told me the truth."

She paused.

"That understanding does not extend to what he did to Alex and Layla. Whatever pain he has carried, whatever rage has driven him for thirty years, Alex and Layla had nothing to do with it. He killed them because Alex was getting too close to the truth. That is unforgivable."

No one argued.

Nate waited a beat before he spoke. "I have something as well. It is not as significant, but it connects to the broader picture."

He pulled up his own tablet. "The investor Angelika mentioned. The old man who told her father that Alex’s death was caused by the pressure of Rochefort Group. The one who was spreading that narrative before anyone had even asked questions."

"He died," Julian said.

"Six months ago. Natural causes. Old age." Nate set the tablet on the table. "Before his death, he conducted business with Summers Corporation. Several transactions over a period of years, during Gabriel Summers’ tenure. Investments and partnerships that appeared legitimate on their own. The timing of some of those transactions, however, aligns with the early years of the siphon. The first few payments out of the Conway trust occurred while he was actively involved with the company."

"He might have been connected to Howard," Gilbert said. "Or he might simply have been someone who knew enough to spread a useful narrative when the time came."

"Either way, that trail ends with his death. But I am tracing his surviving connections. Business partners, family members, anyone who might know more about his relationship to the Brennan siblings. If he was part of the network, there may be someone still alive who has that information."

"What about the Summers Corporation transactions?" Arianne asked. "Can you trace who authorized them?"

"I am working on it. Many of those records were archived years ago. Some may have been lost during the restructuring when you took over. But I am looking."

Arianne nodded. "Good."

The group sat with the information. Two reports, two threads, each one advancing the investigation by inches. Howard Brennan, who had been erased by adoption, who had found his sister’s body at ten years old and disappeared into the system with a grief that had curdled into something lethal. An old investor, dead now, who had once done business with Gabriel Summers and spent his final years spreading lies about Alex Rochefort’s death.

"There is something I do not understand," Julian said. "If Howard was adopted at thirteen and assumed a new identity, how did he build the network? The shells, the siphon, the connections to Blackwood—those required resources and access. How does a child from the system build that kind of infrastructure?"

"He had thirty years," Arianne said. "And he had a motive that never faded. He also had something to offer people who shared his goals—people who wanted to see the Summers family diminished, or the Conways, or both. He was not working alone. He built alliances over decades. He found people who could give him access and resources. He has been constructing this since before I was born."

"Before you were even a target," Franz said.

"I was always the target. My father named me after her. I was the living symbol of everything he had lost. He has been waiting for me to be old enough and visible enough to destroy."

The room took in the weight of this in silence.

Gilbert closed his tablet. "The PI will continue working on the adoption records. I will update everyone when there is news."

"I will keep tracing the investor’s connections," Nate said. "And the Summers Corporation transactions. Something may surface."

Julian leaned back in his chair. "And we wait again."

"We have been waiting for years," Gilbert said. "A little more will not change anything."

The meeting wound down shortly after. There was nothing else to discuss, no sudden breakthroughs to celebrate, just the slow and grinding work of an investigation that had been unfolding for decades and would continue to unfold for however long it took.

Nate and Julian left first, their voices fading down the hallway. Gilbert lingered near the door.

"The PI is going to keep pushing on the adoption records," he said. "If there is anything to find, he will find it."

Arianne nodded. "Thank you. For bringing this tonight."

"It is what we do." He paused with his hand on the doorframe. "You should get some sleep. Both of you. It has been a long day."

"We will," Franz said.

Gilbert left. The door clicked shut behind him.

The room fell silent. Franz did not speak. He did not move toward her. He waited, the way he always waited, for her to decide what she needed.

After a long moment, Arianne said, "She was going to keep the baby."

"Yes."

She stood and walked to the window. Outside, the estate was dark, the garden lights casting soft pools of gold across the lawn. Somewhere in the house, the twins were asleep. Sam and Audrey had gone home with Gilbert a while ago. The new year had begun.

"I understand why he wants to burn everything down." She paused. "But he killed Alex and Layla. Whatever was done to him, whatever pain he has carried since he was ten years old, that does not justify what he did to them."

"No. It does not."

She turned from the window and met his eyes. "I am going to find him. Whatever name he is using now, whatever identity he is hiding behind, I am going to find him. And I am going to make sure he answers for Alex and Layla."

Franz crossed to her. He took her hand in his, and he held it. "I know you will."

There was nothing more to say — not about the difficulty, not about the records that might never open, not about the man she was hunting who could be anyone. He simply held her hand in the lamplight, the warmth of the room around them, the investigation waiting for morning.