The auditorium fell completely silent, save for the rhythmic, deafening thud of my own heartbeat pounding against my ribs. My troublesome knee locked up, and the cheap camera slipped from my trembling fingers, clattering loudly against the concrete floor beneath my seat. I didn't care. I couldn't breathe.

Thomas stood waiting with an outstretched hand, a triumphant, arrogant smirk plastered across his face. His bodyguards kept their weapons raised, their eyes scanning the panicked, half-empty rows of seats around us. They were focused entirely on me, entirely on the perimeter, completely underestimating the three young women standing before them.

Chloe reached the bottom step, just five feet away from Thomas.

"Hand it over, sweetheart," Thomas purred, his fingers twitching in anticipation.

Chloe stopped. She looked down at the tiny titanium drive in her palm, then slowly raised her eyes to meet Thomas's gaze.

"You know, Thomas," Chloe said, her voice completely devoid of fear, carrying a strange, eerie calm that made even the ruthless lawyer hesitate. "You always thought you were the smartest man in the room."

Thomas frowned, his brow furrowing. "What are you talking about? Give me the drive."

"You assumed Jonah was dead," Chloe continued, her voice echoing clearly through the auditorium's overhead microphone system, which hadn't been shut off. "You assumed old man Henderson took our mother's murder to his grave. And you assumed Uncle Caleb was just a clueless, broken-down hardware store clerk."

Thomas’s smile vanished. A sudden wave of unease flickered across his eyes. "What did you say?"

"We didn't just hire a private investigator six months ago," Chloe said, a fierce, triumphant smile spreading across her lips. "We hired the best cyber-intelligence firm in Zurich. And three weeks ago, they traced every single offshore account, every shell corporation, and every wire transfer you made to fund your syndicate."

She held the titanium drive out toward him, dangling it by its lanyard.

"And guess what else we found, Thomas?"

Thomas lunged forward, grabbing for the drive with a snarling curse. "Give me that!"

At that exact second, Chloe dropped the drive.

It didn't hit the carpet. It fell into a small, open velvet box she held in her left hand—a box wired with a specialized digital transmitter.

"Now, Emma! Now, Mia!" Chloe screamed at the top of her lungs.

From the stage above, Emma slammed her palm down onto a large red emergency button attached to the podium—a button they had secretly wired into the university's master audio-visual network during rehearsals that morning.

Instantly, the massive jumbo screens behind the stage flickered off the graduation graphics and replaced them with live, encrypted financial data, bank statements, and—most devastatingly—a high-definition video recording playing at full volume.

It was a recording of Thomas More, sitting in a private study twenty-two years ago, calmly ordering the assassination of Sarah More, while old man Henderson nodded in agreement.

The audio blasted through the stadium's thousand-watt speakers, crystal clear, echoing off the walls for every remaining faculty member, security guard, and terrified parent to hear.

Thomas froze. His face drained of all color, turning the sickly shade of old parchment. He stared up at the giant screen, his mouth opening and closing like a fish gasped for air.