After I hung up, I noticed something caught under the leaves of a rosebush.

It was a small envelope, damp with the morning dew and covered in my father’s unmistakable handwriting.

It was addressed directly to me, and I picked it up with trembling hands.

It felt as if the paper weighed more than it should, as if it held a final, decisive move in a game I hadn’t known we were playing.

Chapter 2: The Architect of Shadows

Attorney Penelope arrived twenty minutes later, carrying her briefcase and a bottle of vintage wine.

She’d been my father’s legal counsel for decades, but she was also a dear friend who’d known me since I was a child.

We shut ourselves in the study, which still smelled of the mild tobacco and old wood that always reminded me of my father.

I sat in his large leather armchair, still clutching the unopened envelope in my hand.

“You didn’t want to open that alone, did you?” Penelope asked gently.