Elodie sits on the studio bench tying her ballet shoes.

I did not interrogate Scarlett.

That was Hannah’s first instruction and my lawyer’s second.

A nine-year-old should not be turned into a witness by the loudest adult in the room simply because she knows something useful.

So we separated what needed to happen.

Elodie stayed with Hannah and another instructor to prepare for the performance.

Scarlett went with a female academy administrator until her father could be reached.

Marcella called her lawyer.

I called mine.

Nobody called a family council.

That decision offended half the Ferraros before sunset.

Good.

My consigliere, Thomas Vale, arrived at Bellweather twenty-eight minutes later. Thomas was sixty-one, silver-haired, exact, and still called consigliere by men who thought “general counsel” sounded too much like an insurance company. He had spent three decades translating Ferraro pride into language that could survive courts, boards, regulators, and prosecutors.

He looked at the broken ribbons.

Then at me.

“You hit her?”

“Yes.”

“After the scissors were out of her hand?”

“Immediately after.”

His mouth flattened.

“You threatened her?”

“Yes.”

“What exactly?”

I told him.

He closed his eyes.

“Niccolò.”

“I know.”

“No, you know emotionally. I need you to know legally.”

“I know legally.”

“Good.”

Then he turned to the academy director.

“Preserve the cameras.”

Bellweather had video in the common rehearsal studio for child-safety reasons.

No audio.

The footage showed Marcella taking the shoe from Elodie, cutting both ribbons, Hannah stepping in, me entering, Marcella raising the scissors, reaching toward the second shoe, my intervention, then the slap.

Continuous sequence.

No long pause.

That would matter.

Then Thomas asked about the performance.

Why was Elodie so important tonight?

Hannah answered:

“She isn’t important because she’s a Ferraro.”

That interested me.

“Explain.”

The gala performance was being produced jointly by Bellweather Academy and the Ferraro Foundation. Forty children would perform a fifteen-minute opening piece before dinner. The casting was done by Bellweather instructors.

No family override.

No donor preference.

Elodie had been selected for the opening quartet because she remembered spacing well, followed cues, and did not freeze under stage lights.

At four, that was the qualification.

Scarlett also had a prominent role later in the piece with the older students.

So Marcella’s claim that Scarlett could only dance if Elodie did not made no artistic sense.

“They’re both already performing?”

“Yes,” Hannah said.

I looked toward the hallway where Marcella stood with counsel.

“Then why sabotage Elodie?”

Hannah hesitated.

“Because of the opening.”

“What about it?”

She looked uncomfortable.

“The foundation materials call it the Prima Figlia entrance.”

I knew the phrase.

I had hoped I would never hear it again.

Prima Figlia.

First Daughter.

An old Ferraro ceremonial title attached to the girl who opened the annual winter gala.

Not legally.

Not officially.

Socially.

The tradition had existed for nearly seventy years.

The eldest eligible girl of whichever Ferraro branch held senior family status would walk onto the stage first, usually carrying a candle or ribbon, followed by other children.

The title had no property rights.

No trust.

No company vote.

No inheritance.

But old families can create extraordinary amounts of power out of things that technically mean nothing.

The Prima Figlia sat beside the senior matriarch.

Appeared in photographs.

Opened charity events.

Received introductions.

Older donors remembered her.

Younger girls were told the title represented grace, continuity, and “the women who kept the family standing while the men made trouble.”

It had once been charming.