Nicholas’s POV
The report landed on my desk like a blade.
A single cream envelope, unmarked except for the lab’s embossed seal, sat atop the stack of dispatches Dan had left. No courier had dared enter. They’d just left it there in the center, an island of silence amid contracts and petitions.
Norman stirred immediately, hackles up. We know what’s inside.
I sat back in the leather chair and steepled my fingers, staring at the envelope. It looked absurdly small, like something a child might send—a birthday card or a folded drawing. But it carried the weight of six years of suspicion.
I’d had Dan send the samples out under a false name, not through the palace’s usual channels. I’d kept it all sealed tighter than a vault so no one could tamper with it. At least, I thought I had.
Now the
