Blood was drying on my cuff when I returned home at 1:43 a.m., but the worst violence waiting for me wasn’t at the docks. Before I could turn on the lights, my housekeeper stepped from the darkness and whispered, “Don’t make a sound,” then showed me why my fiancée had been terrorizing my children for eleven weeks, and why losing my temper was exactly what she needed.

The screen lit up with a video file dated three weeks prior.

I watched in silent horror as Camille casually poured a glass of sticky orange juice directly over a stack of Rosie’s colored drawings, watching the paper soak while my daughter silently cried in the corner.

Naomi swiped her thumb across the glass.

Another video played. It showed Jack kneeling on the hard hardwood floor of his bedroom, his small arms shaking violently as he held two heavy leather encyclopedias straight out in front of his chest. Camille sat in an armchair nearby, checking her nails, telling him that if he dropped a book, he’d spend the night in the dark cellar.

Then a third video opened.

Rosie was sitting frozen at the grand piano in the living room. Camille leaned down, putting her lips inches from my daughter’s ear.

"Your mother died because soft women break things," Camille’s recorded voice whispered through the phone speaker. "Do you want to grow up and break your father too?"

I stopped breathing. The air in my lungs turned to pure, razor-sharp glass.

"She’s been doing this every time you leave the city," Naomi whispered, her voice raw with emotion. "She’s breaking their spirits so they become completely silent. But that’s not all, Roman. Look at this."

Naomi swiped away the videos and opened a folder containing captured text messages.

The messages were between Camille and a contact listed only as A.V.

Camille was arranging amended guardianship documents—legal papers designed to transfer full custody of Jack and Rosie to her in the event of my death or incapacitation.

My eyes scanned down to a message sent at 4:15 p.m. yesterday.

Once Moretti signs the updated estate papers, the children can be moved quietly to the Swiss boarding school. He won't be around to object.

The recipient’s initials were A.V.

Arthur Velez.

My personal attorney. My estate planner. The man who had managed my legal empire for ten years and sat at my dinner table every Christmas.

"She’s preparing to take them," Naomi whispered.

Suddenly, Jack’s voice rang out from the library, sharp and defiant.

"Don’t touch that! It was Mom’s!"