An assistant hurried nervously into the room, as if the atmosphere had suddenly grown heavier.
When the magnifying glass touched the parchment, the silence deepened.
The emir examined the seal carefully for several seconds.
Then he lifted his gaze.
His eyes settled on Richard.
“Explain this.”
Richard leaned forward quickly.
“It must be a regional variation,” he said. “Scribes often—”
But the emir raised his hand again.
“No.”
The single word sounded final.
One of the legal advisors, a thin man with gray-framed glasses, asked if he could inspect the parchment.
He handled it carefully, like a fragile artifact.
After a moment, his expression changed slightly—just a tightening around his mouth.
“Mr. Blake,” he said quietly, “the girl is correct.”
The tension in the room grew colder.
Richard opened his mouth to respond.
Nothing came out.
The advisor tilted the parchment toward the light.
“And there’s something else,” he added.
Mia felt her breath catch.
“The ink contains modern chemical compounds,” he continued. “They don’t match the period the document claims to be from.”
A murmur spread across the room.
A two-hundred-and-fifty-million-dollar deal had been seconds away from completion.
And a child wearing a blue dress had just stopped it.
Richard suddenly stood.
“This is absurd,” he snapped. “A small technical error doesn’t invalidate the agreement.”
But the room had already shifted.
No one was paying attention to him anymore.
The emir continued studying Mia.
Not angrily.
But thoughtfully.
Laura felt her heartbeat racing in her throat.
This moment could determine everything.
If the emir thought her daughter had caused trouble, she might lose her job immediately.
“I’m so sorry, sir,” she whispered. “She didn’t mean to interrupt.”
The emir said nothing at first.
Slowly, he stood up.
Everyone in the room stiffened.
He walked around the table until he stood directly in front of Mia.
The girl looked up at him.
For the first time, she felt afraid—not for herself, but for her mother.
The emir bent slightly so they were face-to-face.
“Who taught you that?” he asked.
Mia hesitated.
It was easy to tell the truth about letters and ink.
But now they were talking about people.
“My great-grandfather,” she finally answered.
The emir raised an eyebrow.
“A professor?”
Mia shook her head.
“He was a sergeant.”
A faint smile appeared on the emir’s face.
“That explains quite a bit.”
He straightened again and turned toward the table.