The cat hissed at the top of the stairs—and then the elderly mother was shoved by her daughter-in-law, falling right before its eyes.

I left the jail with my head spinning. Arthur had sent people to watch my home. He intended to eliminate Grace and Lily. He had kept records of everything. And Victoria—my wife, my enemy, the woman who had tried to kill my daughter—had just handed me the keys to bring him down.

I called Grace immediately.

"Lock every door," I told her. "Close every curtain. Do not answer the phone. Do not open the gate for anyone. Not even the police. Wait for me. I am coming home, and then we are leaving."

Grace’s voice was steady, but I heard the fear beneath it.

"There is a car parked across the street, Nathan. It has been there for twenty minutes. Two men inside. They have not moved."

"Do not let them see you," I said. "I am calling the guards. Stay inside. I will handle this."

I phoned the head of my security team and gave orders to intercept the vehicle, detain the men until police arrived, and maintain full alert at the house. Then I drove straight to Sterling Enterprises.

Arthur’s office occupied the entire top floor of the tallest tower in the city. I walked past the reception desk, ignored calls to stop, and kicked open the door to his private office. It was empty. Arthur was gone.

But his safe stood exactly where Victoria had said it would—an imposing steel cabinet set into the wall behind his desk. I typed in the combination: 0417.

The lock clicked open.

My heart hammered as I pulled the heavy door aside. Inside sat stacks of documents, envelopes, and bound ledgers. Two caught my eye. One bore my father’s name. The other bore Arthur’s own initials.

I opened Arthur’s first.

Page after page of entries. Payments. Dates. Instructions. Records of payments to Victoria. Payments to witnesses. Payments to people whose names meant nothing to me but whose presence on these pages was criminal proof of a decades-long conspiracy. He had documented everything. Every bribe. Every threat. Every step of the plan to take my inheritance.

I opened the second ledger—the one marked with my father’s name. And there I found the truth that shattered every memory I had of my childhood.

Arthur had not just been my father’s partner. He had been my father’s killer.

The final entries were dated three years ago—the week my father died. Instructions to tamper with his medication. Notes on making it appear natural causes. A promise from Arthur that he would care for Nathan and ensure Victoria secured her place by his side. A plan formed years before I ever met her.

My father hadn’t died of a heart attack. He had been murdered.

And Arthur had sat at my father’s funeral, crying crocodile tears, while plotting to steal everything my father had spent a lifetime building. Including my life. Including my daughter.

I closed the ledger, my hands shaking violently. Every betrayal made sense now. Every lie. Every threat. Arthur had been pulling strings since before I was born. And he would not stop until he had erased every trace of my father’s bloodline from the face of the earth.

Including Lily.

I stuffed both ledgers into my briefcase. I turned to leave—and froze. Standing in the open doorway, blocking my exit, was Arthur Sterling himself. He held a silencer-equipped pistol in his hand. A cruel, triumphant smile spread across his face.

"I wondered how long it would take you to find this place," Arthur said calmly, stepping fully into the room and closing the door behind him. "Victoria always did have a weak streak. Sentimental. I should have silenced her years ago."

"Get out of my way, Arthur," I said, gripping the handle of my briefcase so tightly my knuckles turned white. "I have everything. Your records. The proof of murder. Everything. You are finished."

Arthur laughed. A dry, rasping sound.

"You think a book means anything when you are dead? No one will ever know you came here. Your car will be found abandoned miles away. Your housekeeper and the child… tragically lost in a fire. And Victoria? She will remain in jail, forgotten. I will handle everything else. And the fortune will finally be mine."

He raised the gun.