He thought this was about money.

He thought everything was a transaction.

“I don’t want your house, Elias. And I don’t want your allowance.”

“Then what do you want?”

His patience was thinning; I could hear the sharp edge returning to his voice.

I picked up the black-and-white photograph of my father as a young man, smiling outside a small brick building.

“I want the truth,” I said.

“The truth about what?”

“My father,” I said.

There was another pause, longer this time.

“Your father was an accountant, Ava. He is deceased. What could he possibly have to do with this?”

“His name was Arthur Vance,” I said clearly.

The silence on the other end of the line became absolute.

Even the faint sound of city traffic through his office window seemed to vanish.

“Where are you?” Elias asked.

His voice was no longer condescending.

It was quiet, sharp, and laced with a sudden, dangerous intensity.

“I am in a safe place,” I said.

“Ava, listen to me very carefully,” he said, his words slow and deliberate. “Whatever old papers you think you have found, they are irrelevant. They are ancient history.”