The morning sun filtered through the imported French glass of the Beverly Hills mansion, casting long, geometric shadows across the pristine marble floor. Where shattered china and spilled red wine had stained the dining room the night before, a team of private cleaners had already scrubbed away every trace of violence. To the outside world, the Cross estate was an oasis of untouchable perfection.

Camryn spent her days in a maximum-security federal facility, stripped of her designer clothes, her jewelry, and her power, realizing too late that all her wealth could not buy back a single second of freedom. Adrian faded into the background of prison life, a tragic casualty of a mother who loved control more than her own flesh and blood.

And me?

I had officially closed that chapter of my life. My federal clearance remained active, and occasionally, high-level agencies would reach out for specialized consulting on complex white-collar infiltration cases. I always politely declined. My battling days were behind me. I had traded the high-stakes world of federal investigations for the quiet peace of the wilderness, living life strictly on my own terms.

One afternoon, while walking along the rocky shoreline, I pulled a small, encrypted flash drive from my jacket pocket—the final backup archive of the entire Cross investigation.

I looked out at the vast, rolling waves of the ocean, feeling the cool wind wash over my face. With a calm, deliberate motion, I tossed the flash drive far out into the deep blue water, watching it sink beneath the surface without a ripple.