The elevator deposits me into Victoria's foyer, and her surprise is genuine.
"Adison." She stops mid-stride, one hand frozen on the hallway console. "I wasn't expecting—"
Her composure reassembles itself in the space of a heartbeat. The surprise melts into practiced warmth, and she crosses the marble floor with arms already opening.
"Darling." She presses air kisses to both my cheeks, her perfume wrapping around me like expensive silk. "You look exhausted. How are you feeling? The pregnancy must be taking its toll."
I let her guide me toward the sitting room, cataloging the performance even as I accept it.
"And the ranch," she continues, settling us both onto the ivory sofa. "Jake's property. I hope Violet wasn't too difficult during your stay. She can be... challenging."
"I wanted to ask you about Violet, actually." I redirect before she can launch into more pleasantries. "How has she been since she returned?"
Something complicated crosses Victoria's face. A flicker of confusion mixed with something harder to name.
"Strange." She smooths her skirt with careful fingers. "She locked herself in her room for half a day when Walter and she arrived. Wouldn't speak to anyone. I thought perhaps something happened at the ranch that upset her."
"And then?"
"Then she emerged as if nothing had changed." Victoria's brow furrows slightly. "Manicures. Shopping. The usual distractions she reaches for when she's avoiding reality."
I wait, sensing there's more.
"But she's different now." Victoria's voice drops, genuinely puzzled. "Sharper. More guarded. Like she's watching everything with new eyes." She meets my gaze, maternal frustration evident. "I don't understand the transformation. What happened to her in Texas?"
I understand it perfectly.
Violet overheard the truth about her brother. Discovered the foundation of her family cracked beneath her feet. She's processing a revelation that reframes everything she thought she knew about her place in the world.
But that's not why I'm here.
"Victoria." I lean forward, abandoning pretense. "Walter is Richard's biological son."
The words land in the elegant room like stones dropped into still water.
Victoria's composure fractures. Just slightly—a twitch at the corner of her eye, a tightening around her mouth. She recovers quickly, but I've already seen the crack.
"I need to understand how this happened." I keep my voice steady despite the trembling in my legs. "Tell me the truth."
She's quiet for a long moment. Her gaze drifts toward the window, toward Manhattan spread out below like a kingdom she's spent decades learning to navigate.
"It was a party." Her voice comes out smaller than I've ever heard it. "Twenty-four years ago. Mike and I had barely been married a year, and he was always traveling. Always working. I felt invisible."
"So you turned to my father?"
"I was furious at Mike over some slight I can't even remember anymore." She laughs, but the sound carries no humor. "There was too much champagne. Richard was there—charming, attentive, everything my husband wasn't being at that moment." She pauses. "This was before Elena. Before any of it."
"One night." I say it flatly. A statement, not a question.
"One reckless night I've spent decades burying." Victoria finally meets my eyes. "I convinced myself it didn't matter. Walter looked enough like Mike that no one questioned it. I never told anyone—not Mike, not Richard. I carried that secret alone."
The confession settles between us. I watch her face, searching for remorse or regret. Finding something more complicated instead.
"Why keep the DNA test?" The question burns in my throat. "If you wanted this buried, why create evidence that could destroy you?"
Victoria's hands twist in her lap. The first truly uncontrolled gesture I've ever seen from her.
"Terror." The word scrapes out raw. "I was terrified of losing everything. My marriage. My position. My children." She takes a shaky breath. "I needed to know for certain. So I had the test done in secret, confirmed what I suspected, and then buried it."
"But you kept it."
"Insurance." Her voice hardens slightly. "Not intention. I never planned for anyone to find it. I just... couldn't destroy the proof entirely. Some part of me needed it to exist, even if no one ever saw it."
The architecture of her choices becomes clear. A woman building walls around a secret, then leaving herself a back door she hoped she'd never need.
"Walter found it." I let the implication hang. "And now he wants my company. My position. Everything my father built."
"I know." Victoria's expression shutters. "He told me."
"Then stop him." I lean forward, urgency bleeding into my voice. "You're his mother. Surely you have some influence. Some leverage."
Victoria shakes her head slowly. Something closes behind her eyes.
"I'm sorry, Adison." The words land like a door swinging shut. "I doubt I can stop my son. Walter has always been... determined. Once he sets his mind to something, he doesn't waver."
"He's threatening to destroy me." The desperation surfaces despite my best efforts. "To leak the pregnancy, the relationship with Jake, everything he can use as ammunition. Your marriage is at risk too. Your reputation."
I watch her face, hoping for some flicker of self-preservation that might translate into alliance.
"You could use this as leverage against him." I press harder. "The affair. The secret. If you talked to Walter, controlled the narrative—"
"It wouldn't affect my relationship with Mike." Victoria cuts me off, her composure fully restored. "We've been together too long. He knows who I am."
"The scandal—"
"Would barely register." She almost smiles, but the expression carries no warmth. "Most of Mike's shareholders cheat on their wives. Their wives cheat on them. No one in our circles would judge me or him for something that happened twenty-four years ago."
The calculation lands cold and absolute.
She's not going to help me. She's weighed the costs, measured the risks, and decided her position is secure enough to weather whatever storm Walter creates.
I rise from the sofa. My legs feel unsteady, but I force them to hold me upright.
"I see." The words come out hollow. Empty.
"Adison." Victoria stands too, reaching for my arm with something that might be genuine regret. "I never wanted it to come to this. Your father was... Richard meant something to me."
"Clearly." I step back from her touch. "He meant enough to give you a son."
She flinches. The first truly wounded reaction I've seen from her today.
I walk toward the foyer without looking back. Disappointment settles into my bones like cold, seeping through muscle and marrow until I feel it in my teeth.
I came here hoping for an ally.
I found another obstacle instead.