Nobody moved.
The study held its breath around them, dust hanging still in the shafts of afternoon light, and Elena watched Adrian's hands tighten around the leather journal like it might combust if he loosened his grip.
"Say that again," Adrian said.
"You heard me," Renata said. "Someone in this room is the person Marcus actually intended to inherit the controlling stake in everything he built. Not Caterina. Not Dante. Not even you, Adrian, not entirely." Her eyes moved slowly across the three of them. "He wrote it down three months before he died. I've read it more times than I can count. I know it by heart."
"Then tell us," Luca said. His voice had gone rough, stripped of the patience he'd carried through every previous revelation. "Stop making us guess. I've spent my whole life bei
