“Are you… Mr. Mark’s daughter?” he asked gently.
My heart stopped.
No one had spoken my father’s name in years. He had been a distant figure—British, wealthy, always traveling, always busy. A man who left more silence than memories. When he died seven years ago, he left debts… and nothing else, or so I believed.
“I worked for your father for thirty-three years,” the man said. “My name is Edward Collins. Before he passed, he asked me to give you this—when the moment was right.”
He reached under the desk and placed a thick, yellowed envelope in my hands.
They trembled instantly.
“Why now?” I whispered.
Edward smiled, but there was sadness in it.
“He told me you wouldn’t step into a place like this unless you had no choice left.”
I opened the envelope.
There was no money.
No letter.
No apology.
