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The heavy silver clink of Claire’s champagne glass dropping against her plate broke the dead silence of the restaurant. Her perfectly manicured fingers turned ghost-white as she gripped the tablecloth. / Chapter 6 / 8

Chapter 6 - THE MIDNIGHT VISITOR

It was past 2:00 AM when a sharp, frantic pounding echoed through the quiet house.

I sat upright in my bed, instantly alert. The house was locked down tighter than a fortress, with motion-sensor floodlights illuminating every corner of the exterior grounds.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

It wasn't Claire this time. The pounding was heavier, desperate, almost panicked.

I slipped on my silk robe, walked down the carpeted stairs, and peered through the smart security monitor by the front door.

On the screen stood Daniel. But he was completely alone.

His hair was disheveled, his shirt was half-unbuttoned, and his eyes were wide, bloodshot, and bulging with absolute terror. He wasn't trying to break the lock anymore; he was practically collapsing against the doorframe, sobbing hysterically.

"Please! Please let me in! She's gone! She took everything!" Daniel screamed at the camera lens, his voice cracking into a ragged wail.

I pressed the intercom button. "Go away, Daniel. If you don't leave this property in sixty seconds, I am calling the police."

"No, wait! You don't understand!" Daniel sobbed, pressing his face against the glass of the front door. "Claire didn't just try to steal your house tonight! She... she was working with someone else! Someone dangerous! When we got back to our apartment, she packed her bags, emptied our joint bank accounts, and drove away. But before she left, she told me something terrifying..."

My hand froze over the intercom button. "What are you talking about?"

"She didn't just want the house to pay off our debts," Daniel cried, sliding down the door until he was sitting on the porch mat, his shoulders shaking violently. "She found out about Thomas's offshore account. The one he set up before he died—the ten-million-dollar fund you thought was just a rumor!"

The air rushed out of my lungs.

Thomas’s offshore fund. Only three people in the world knew about it: Thomas, myself, and our former corporate accountant, who had mysteriously vanished to the Cayman Islands six months ago.

"How... how could Claire know about that?" I whispered, my voice trembling for the first time all evening.

"She didn't figure it out on her own," Daniel gasped, looking up directly into the security camera with wild, paranoid eyes. "Someone else gave her the files. Someone who has been inside this house before. And right now... they're coming for you."

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The silence in the master bedroom stretched so tight I could hear the slow, heavy drip of my own pulse in my ears. Dominic Rossi’s dark eyes locked onto mine, burning with a feverish intensity that should have sent me running back down the hallway and out into the rain

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Before Daniel could finish his sentence, the floodlights illuminating the driveway suddenly clicked off.

Pitch blackness swallowed the entire front yard.

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