The Vance house sits at the bottom of a hill Elena spent eighteen years trying to climb.
It's smaller than she remembers. The white paint is peeling. The garden is overgrown. Everything shrinks when you leave it long enough.
The car stops. Damon doesn't move.
"I'll wait here."
She opens the door.
Eleanor Vance stands in the doorway. Her hair is perfectly pinned. Her dress is pressed. But her eyes are red-rimmed. Furious.
"You came," Eleanor says. An accusation.
"You asked me to."
"I asked for Clara."
Elena doesn't speak. Silence is safer than truth.
Eleanor steps back. "Inside."
The parlor smells of lavender and lemon polish. Clara's piano sits untouched. The family portraits line the walls—Clara in every frame.
Elena isn't in any of them.
"Sit."
Elena sits. Her mother takes the chair across from her. The same cold distance.
"You signed the contract."
"Yes."
"And you're following the rules?"
Elena thinks of the photograph. The nursery. Damon's fingers on her jaw.
"Yes."
Eleanor studies her. "Clara sent a letter. She's in Europe. She's safe."
Elena's chest tightens. "Did she say anything else?"
"Does it matter?"
Eleanor stands. "There are things you need to understand about the Cross family."
Elena's heart stops.
"Damon Cross is not a good man. His father was a drunk. His mother was unstable. The fire that killed her—there were rumors."
"What kind of rumors?"
Eleanor walks to the window. Looks out at the car.
"He was fourteen when his mother died. He built everything from nothing. Men like that don't do it cleanly."
Elena stands. "What are you saying?"
"I'm saying you're living with a man who buries what he doesn't want found. Ask yourself why a woman with a newborn would die in a blaze and leave no trace of the child. Ask yourself why he has a wing no one enters."
Elena's blood runs cold.
"You know about the west wing."
Eleanor's eyes flicker. Warning.
"I know you should stay out of it."
"How do you know it exists?"
Silence.
Elena steps forward. "How do you know, Mother?"
"Because I was there. When the fire happened. When they pulled the bodies from the rubble. When Damon Cross walked out holding nothing but a photograph of a baby who wasn't there."
The room spins.
"What baby?"
Eleanor looks at her. For the first time, Elena sees something behind her mother's cold eyes. Fear.
"Go home. Sign the papers. Survive the year. And stop asking questions before you find answers you can't unlearn."
Elena walks back to the car on legs that don't feel like her own.
Damon doesn't look at her. "That was quick."
"She didn't want me to stay."
He starts the engine.
"Your mother," Elena says. "Celeste. Did she die in the fire?"
Damon's knuckles whiten. "Yes."
"Was there a baby with her?"
The car swerves. Barely. But Elena feels it.
"Where is this coming from?"
"My mother said things. About a baby who wasn't there."
He doesn't answer.
"What happened to your sister, Damon?"
"Stop."
"Was she stillborn? Did she die in the fire? Or—"
He slams the brakes.
The car jerks to a stop. The seatbelt cuts into her chest.
Damon's hands are shaking. His breathing is uneven.
He turns to her. His eyes are wild. Raw.
"You want the truth?"
Elena nods.
He reaches into his jacket. Pulls out a photograph—creased, faded, folded a hundred times.
He thrusts it into her hands.
Celeste stands in front of the mansion. Beside her is a man. And in front of them—
A little girl. Dark hair. Wide eyes. Maybe four years old.
Elena sees the girl's face.
Her own face.
The same eyes. The same mouth.
"This is my sister," Damon says. His voice is barely a whisper. "She didn't die in the fire. She was taken."
Elena looks up. "Taken by who?"
His eyes meet hers.
"By your mother."
The photograph slips from her fingers.
"No," she breathes.
Damon picks it up. His hands are steady now. But his eyes—his eyes have been waiting twenty years to say this.
"Eleanor Vance wanted a daughter. She couldn't have one. So she took one. The night of the fire, she walked into my house and walked out with a baby. My sister. Your mother raised her as a spare. Treated her like she was nothing."
He turns the photograph.
"That little girl is you."
Elena's world stops.
Elena and Mama. Before the fire.
Not coincidence. Not a name collected.
A truth buried for twenty years.
She looks at Damon. At the man who married her.
"You're my—"
"No. We share no blood. You were stolen from my family. Raised by the woman who burned my mother alive. I have spent twenty years waiting to bring you home."
Elena can't breathe.
Home. He said home.
"You knew," she whispers. "Before the wedding. You knew who I was."
Damon doesn't deny it.
"The contract was never about Clara. It was always about you."
She should be angry. She should scream.
Instead: "What happened to your mother?"
Damon's face goes dark.
"She's alive."
Elena's heart stops.
"She survived the fire. She's been in hiding. Because Eleanor didn't just steal you. She tried to kill us both. And if she finds out I brought you back—"
He doesn't finish.
Elena looks at the photograph. At the little girl who was stolen.
"Celeste is alive?"
Damon nods.
"And she wants to see you."