Damian's POV
The report arrived at 2:14 a.m.
I'd stopped sleeping days ago. Sleep was for men who weren't waiting for their entire lives to be confirmed or destroyed by a manila envelope. I'd been sitting in my study, staring at the two photographs I'd been comparing for weeks—Arabella on our wedding day, Aria at a charity gala—when Hugo knocked on my door.
His face told me everything before he opened his mouth.
"I have it," he said. "All of it."
He placed the envelope on my desk. It was thick. Heavy. The kind of envelope that changed lives.
"Leave it," I said. "I'll read it alone."
Hugo hesitated. "Sir, some of the contents are... difficult. You might want—"
"Alone."
He nodded and left, closing the door behind him with a soft click that sounded like a gunshot in the silence.
I
