Luca set it on the desk without much ceremony.
The envelope was smaller than Mara expected… a standard document size, sealed and unremarkable, like the kind that banks use for safe deposit retrieval. Nothing about it looked like the thing that had been sitting over her head for days like a blade on a fraying rope.
Nico looked at it for a moment. Then he looked at her. "Sit down."
This time she sat.
Luca left without being told and pulled the door shut behind him.
The study settled into the particular quiet it held late at night; the rest of the estate had gone to sleep, and the guards were on rotation; it was just the two of them and the desk lamp and the envelope.
Nico broke the seal.
He went through it the way he went through everything: without rushing, reading each document fully before setting it face-down to his left.
