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Roman's hand comes to rest on the back of the chair beside him. The gesture is calm, almost casual, which makes it more threatening.

Enzo answers. “Yes.”

The word empties the air from the room.

For one heartbeat, I see smoke rising above the shelter. I hear Maggie coughing. I see Jules with soot across his face and my men dragging them from a burning building. Maggie stood in the ashes of the place she built with her own hands and tried not to break because animals still needed her.

Isabella ordered that. The fire was never random, nor was Enzo acting alone. It was a calculated attack meant to hurt Maggie and weaken everyone connected to Ivy.

My fingers remain flat against the table. “Why the shelter?”

Enzo’s attention drops. “Because Maggie Hayes wouldn’t stay away from it. Isabella believed if the shelter was destroyed, Maggie would become easier to move. Easier to isolate. She underestimated her.”

A humorless breath leaves Roman. “Many do.”

My brother’s words would almost amuse me under different circumstances. Here, they only confirm what I already know. Maggie survives by refusing to become what people expect. She turns grief into work. Fear into stubbornness. Love into action.

That may be why Isabella fears her.

I look back at Enzo. “The original attempt on Ivy.”

“Isabella financed it. She didn’t want Ivy harmed.” He lifts both hands slightly, as if that distinction might help him. “She wanted her removed from your custody and taken somewhere controlled.”

“Controlled by her.”

“Yes.”

Luka’s jaw works once. Viktor stares at Enzo with open disgust now, no longer bothering to hide it. Roman remains unreadable, but the quiet around him has grown heavier.

I think of Clara again. Her refusal to post photographs. Her discomfort around certain donors with New York names. The way she kept Ivy’s daycare private and changed pediatric appointments when too many people learned the schedule. I thought those fears belonged to my world.

I was wrong. Clara had been protecting Ivy from hers.

“Who are the Morettis?” I ask.

Enzo gives a small, bitter laugh before remembering himself. “Not what you think. Not street soldiers waving guns in restaurants. Not men shouting threats from cars. The Morettis are old money and older blood. New York, Italy, ports, private banks, shipping contracts, art boards, charity foundations, political favors. They host galas while other men bury bodies for them.”

Roman’s eyes narrow. “Italian networks.”

“Generational,” Enzo says. “Quiet. Refined. The kind of people who sit beside judges at fundraisers and make customs delays disappear with one phone call.”

That matches every instinct I had about the woman in the photograph. Isabella Moretti didn’t look like someone who needed to ask twice. She looked like someone who had spent a lifetime making other people mistake elegance for mercy.

“She came from Italy?” Viktor asks.

“Her family did. Naples first, then Rome, then New York. The legitimate branches are hotels, galleries, imports, and foundations. The other branches are harder to prove.” Enzo rubs both hands down his face, exhaustion and fear making him look older. “You understand how this works. Families like that don’t separate business from blood.”

Roman looks at me. “Clara ran from a dynasty.”

The word resonates in a way I don’t like.

Clara never said dynasty. She said family. Controlling. Image-driven. Suffocating. I hear her voice now and realize she had given me the truth stripped of the parts most likely to make me act. She hadn’t lied. She had edited danger into something I could accept.

I hated her for half a second. Then grief erased it because I understand why she did it.

Clara knew where I came from. She knew what I had left behind, or thought I had left behind. She believed telling me the truth would drag another war to our door. So, she kept her silence, thinking distance and a new name would keep Ivy safe.

It didn’t.