August Halloway didn't look like a man who had just returned from a board meeting. He looked like a man who had spent the last three hours watching a house burn down from a safe distance and was now arriving to check if the foundation was still warm.

I sat on the cold floor, my back against Thaddeus’s wheelchair, clutching my stomach as the baby kicked violently against my hand. The weight of the betrayal was suffocating. Celeste hadn't just tried to humiliate me; she had planned to murder my unborn child and me from the very beginning. And Julian Vance was the puppet master pulling every string.

August stood completely motionless before the open safe, holding the tape recorder in his hand. His knuckles were white, his dark eyes fixed on the red light that was still slowly pulsing.

"They used me," August whispered. The calm, icy demeanor he had maintained all afternoon finally shattered, revealing a deep, subterranean rage. "They used my name, my engagement, my entire life... to dismantle everything my family built."

He turned slowly to face his father.

Thaddeus was breathing weakly, his eyes half-closed, but his consciousness was holding on by a single thread. He looked at August, then at me, and slowly lifted his good left hand.

Tap. Tap.

Two taps. No.

"He’s telling you not to go out there," I said, my voice hoarse from crying. "August, Julian’s security team is upstairs. They have weapons. You can't fight them alone."

"I’m not alone," August said softly. He walked over to the desk, pulled a hidden lever beneath the mahogany wood, and a section of the wall slid back to reveal a bank of high-definition monitors displaying live feeds from every room in Halloway House.

On the screens, we could see Julian’s armed mercenaries—six men in dark tactical gear—sweeping through the grand hall. Celeste was standing near the front entrance, a bloody towel wrapped around Julian’s shoulder as he barked orders into a radio.

"They’re looking for the entrance to this vault," August said, his eyes tracking the movements on the screen. "They don't know the master control is down here."

August reached down and picked up a heavy, reinforced comms headset from the desk. He slipped it over his ears and flipped a toggle switch marked OVERRIDE.

Suddenly, the lights on the security monitors flickering in the grand hall went pitch black.

Through the subterranean floorboards, we heard the muffled sound of heavy iron security shutters slamming down over every window and door of Halloway House above. The mansion was transformed instantly into an impenetrable steel tomb.

"Julian," August’s voice echoed through the house’s hidden PA system, loud, deep, and terrifyingly calm. "You wanted the Halloway estate. Now you have it. You are locked inside with every security protocol my father designed for a hostile takeover."

On the monitors, we watched Julian’s men panic. They raised their rifles, shouting into their radios, spraying bullets at the heavy iron shutters, but the high-grade armor plating didn't even dent.

"August!" Julian’s frantic voice bled through the internal comms. "Listen to me! We can settle this! You take fifty percent of the offshore accounts! Just let us out!"

"You made two mistakes, Julian," August said, leaning over the console, his voice dripping with venom. "First, you thought I cared about the money. Second... you threatened the woman carrying the only family I have left."