🚨 "HE SPENT $998,000 IN ONE NIGHT TO IMPRESS HIS MISTRESS—UNTIL THE WAITER DROPPED THE CARD ON THE TABLE AND SAID THREE WORDS THAT RUINED HIS LIFE."

An hour later, my black armored SUV pulled up outside the maximum-security wing of the Metropolitan Correctional Center.

The visitation room smelled of industrial bleach and damp concrete. A single fluorescent light buzzed overhead, casting a sickly yellow hue over the stainless-steel table dividing the room.

The heavy iron door groaned open, and two guards escorted Daniel inside.

He looked unrecognisable. The tailored Tom Ford suits and groomed hair were gone, replaced by a drab orange jumpsuit. His face was gaunt, his eyes hollow and rimmed with red, his wrists bound in heavy steel handcuffs.

When he saw me sitting across the table, his eyes flashed with a sudden, desperate mixture of rage and terror.

"Emily," he rasped, his voice rough. He sat down heavily, the chains clinking against the metal chair. "You came... God, Emily, you have to help me. They're going to give me twenty years. It was Vanessa! She tricked me! She made me sign those wire transfers!"

I sat with my arms crossed, watching him without a shred of pity. "You signed them because you were greedy, Daniel. You wanted my family’s money, you wanted a younger mistress, and you wanted to prove you were bigger than the shadow I cast over you."

"No! You don't understand!" Daniel leaned across the table as far as his chains would allow, lowering his voice to a desperate whisper. "The $998,000 at Aurum House... the sapphire necklace... I didn't buy that for Vanessa!"

I raised an eyebrow. "Really? Because her name was on the appraisal certificate."

"She forced me to put her name on it as a cover!" Daniel panicked, tears welling in his bloodshot eyes. "The necklace... the champagne... the private performance... it was an advance payment! I was buying an encrypted hard drive from a broker who was meeting us in the Sapphire Room that night!"

My posture stiffened slightly. "What hard drive?"

Daniel swallowed hard, looking toward the security cameras before leaning in closer.

"Your father... Richard... he wasn't just hiding Victoria Cole's algorithm, Emily. He was using Hayes Financial to launder foreign capital for an international investment syndicate called Aegis Group. I found the offshore ledgers six months ago by accident."

My heart gave a sharp, heavy thud against my ribs. "You tried to blackmail my father."

"I thought I could use it as leverage during the divorce!" Daniel wept, his hands shaking in the cuffs. "I thought if I bought that hard drive from the broker at Aurum House, I would have the master key to Aegis Group. I would have had enough dirt on Richard to force him to give me half the company!"

He looked up at me, his face pale with raw, unadulterated terror.

"But Richard knew," Daniel whimpered. "He knew I was going to Aurum House that night. He didn't tell you to change your PINs five minutes after the divorce just to protect your money, Emily... He told you to change them so the transaction for the hard drive would fail! He humiliated me in public, framed me for wire fraud, and put me in here so Aegis Group would think I was the one who betrayed them!"

The room seemed to shrink around me. The air grew cold.

"Daniel..." I said, my voice barely above a whisper. "Who is Aegis Group?"

Before Daniel could answer, the door behind him burst open. Two senior federal marshals stepped into the room, accompanied by a man in a dark tailored suit carrying a leather briefcase.

"Visiting time is over, Mrs. Whitmore," the suit stated coldly, pulling an official federal order from his pocket. "Mr. Whitmore is being transferred to a non-communicado federal facility in Virginia immediately under Order of the Department of Justice."

"NO!" Daniel screamed as the guards dragged him backward out of his chair. "EMILY, DON'T GO BACK TO THE PENTHOUSE! THEY KNOW YOU TOOK OVER THE COMPANY! THEY THINK YOU HAVE THE LEDGERS NOW! EMILY—"

The heavy steel door slammed shut, cutting off his screams instantly.

I stood alone in the visitation room, my phone buzzing in my hand.

I pulled it out and looked at the screen. It was an incoming call from an unknown, untraceable satellite number.

I pressed the screen and brought the phone to my ear.

"Hello, Emily," a cold, smooth voice spoke—a voice I had never heard before, cultured, European, and utterly devoid of emotion. "We congratulate you on your appointment as CEO of Hayes Financial. Your father was... inefficient. We hope you will be far more cooperative regarding our outstanding accounts."

I took a deep, steady breath, my eyes hardening like steel.