The little girl had been standing quietly beneath the floral arch when the blonde woman suddenly noticed the silver necklace around her neck.

He stepped away from the group — not far, just to the edge of the room — and made the call.

Two rings.

Three.

"Marcus.

It's Daniel." A pause.

"I know it's late.

I need you to listen."

Victoria took one step toward him.

Ruth stood up from her chair.

That was enough.

Victoria stopped.

Daniel spoke for about four minutes.

He didn't raise his voice.

He described the documents in order.

He described the bank account.

He described the letter.

He described Claire standing in the room.

At the end, he said, "I'll bring everything to you tonight.

I need to know what we're looking at."

He ended the call.

He turned around.

"Who was that?" Victoria said.

"My solicitor."

"Daniel, you don't need to—"

"I have one question for you," he said.

"One.

And I want you to think carefully before you answer."

Victoria waited.

"Is there anything else?

Anything I'm going to find when I start looking?

Because if there is, and I find it on my own, it will go worse for you.

So I'm asking now.

Is there anything else?"

The silence was long.

Victoria looked at Claire.

Something passed between them — not warmth, not history.

Just the particular look of a person calculating how much someone else already knows.

"The property," Claire said quietly.

Victoria's eyes snapped to her.

"Tell him about the property."

"That is not—"

"Tell him," Claire said, "or I will."

Daniel looked between them.

"What property?"

Claire turned to him.

"When Victoria told the hospital I had no next of kin available, she also contacted the property management company that handled the lease on my studio.

My photography studio.

She told them I had p@ssed away.

She took possession of the equipment.

She sold it."

"It was going to be thrown out," Victoria said quickly.

"The lease was ending.

I was trying to preserve—"

"You sold it for nine thousand pounds," Claire said.

"I have the invoice."

"That was three years ago—"

"I want it back," Claire said.

"Every penny.

And I want the studio equipment replaced."

"You have no legal standing to—"

"She has every legal standing," Ruth said from across the room.

"She's alive, Victoria.

She never stopped being alive.

Everything you did, you did to a living person.

That changes what we're talking about."

Victoria looked at Ruth.

Then at Daniel.

Then at the envelope on the table, now disassembled into its individual documents.

And something shifted in her expression.

The calculation finally ran out of room.

"I want a lawyer," she said.

"You'll need one," Daniel said.

"I'm not saying anything else without—"

"You don't have to say anything else." He picked up the documents and slid them back into the envelope.

"You already said enough.

So did the paperwork." He looked at her for a moment — this woman who had worn his ring an hour ago, who had stood at the altar and smiled at him, who had sat with Lily at the breakfast table and braided her hair.

He looked at her the way you look at something you are trying to understand and cannot.

"I think you should go."

Victoria looked at Lily.

Lily had moved to stand beside her father.

She did not move toward Victoria.

Victoria picked up her bouquet from the side table — she picked it up, then set it back down — and walked toward the door.

At the threshold she stopped.

She turned back.

"I did love you," she said to Daniel.

"Whatever you think of me.

I want you to know that."

Daniel said nothing.