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I smirk slightly, nodding.

Yep.

Stalker: Too bad for him. I already own you, Sunshine. He can’t have what’s already mine.

Something warm explodes behind my breastbone, and I rub it. It would be a threat to anyone else—but to me, it’s a promise. A promise of a fantasy, of another life, where Freddie wouldn’t hurt me, and this stalker could be everything.

Smiling softly, I respond.

Hard to prove when I’ve been engaged since I was two.

Stalker: Try me.

Snorting, I leave the message alone and look to my brother’s office, where he keeps all his information. He’s at his club, which means I can snoop, and maybe find something that will end this marriage.

Quietly, I pad into his office. It hasn’t changed since my father used the space—same furniture, same scent, and same suffocating presence of guilt and malice.

I pull on every drawer until something opens. At the bottom is a stack of manila folders. Inside are various spreadsheets, full of numbers I can’t decipher. Huffing, I toss them aside, annoyed. They scatter across the desk, and I exhale, dropping into the chair.

I’ll have to clean that up.

A slight slip of pink peeks from the corner of the mess.

Curious, I slide it out and inhale sharply. It’s my mother’s handwriting. But the edges are burned, and all that’s left are a few words.

To my love…

Was it a love letter to my father? I make no assumptions about their relationship. She never told me she loved my father, nor that she even liked him. We never spoke of him when together. During family dinners, they sat on opposite sides, and she only communicated with me through sign language. They rarely interacted.

If not to him, then to whom?

“Valentina,” Ello says from the doorway. I jump, crumpling the paper in my palm. “What are you doing in here?”

I trust Ello with my life—perhaps more. But sharing this note with him would be like breaking a secret my mother entrusted to me. Slipping it into my tights, I wave at the papers.

“Searching.”

“For what?” he signs.

I smile softly, responding the same way. He knows I prefer ASL. “Did you know she was a ballerina?”

Ello stops, pausing as if I’ve knocked the wind from his lungs. Slowly, he nods.

“I did. That’s how I met her.”

My eyes jump. “You saw her dance?”

He smiles, a memory pulling him away momentarily. “Yes. She was incredible. I worked security for the theater she trained in.” He sighs. “She was something else. Beautiful. Dedicated. Magnificent.”

“Do I remind you of her?” I stand and gesture to my clothes. “When I dance.”

“You remind me of her daily,” he clarifies. “Her wit. Her skill. You go someplace else when you dance—the same as she would.”

Sadly, I sign, “I wish I could’ve seen it. Why would my father never tell me she danced?” I shrug. “Why didn’t she?”

“She gave up a lot when she married your father,” he explains. “Unfortunately, I think it was too painful to talk about.”

“But—”