The word father did not echo.
It detonated.
Lena stood in the center of the nursery, phone still clutched in her hand long after the call had cut. The silence afterward felt unnatural, like the house itself was waiting for her reaction.
Alex released her arm slowly.
“That was staged,” he said.
She didn’t look at him.
“He knew the name.”
A beat.
“Phoenix.”
The nickname hadn’t been public. It hadn’t appeared in articles. It hadn’t been whispered in the press after the so-called suicide.
It had lived only inside these walls.
And inside her bones.
Alex’s voice dropped. “It could have been extracted.”
“From who?” she asked quietly.
He didn’t answer.
Because there were too many possibilities.
And none of them were comforting.
They moved to his study.
Not the polished office gue
