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.

Arthur’s finger tightened on the trigger. I dove to the side just as the shot rang out. The bullet slammed into the heavy wood paneling behind where my head had been a moment before. I scrambled up, vaulting over the edge of his desk, sending papers scattering everywhere.

Arthur fired again. Missed. Cursed.

I reached the door and burst out into the hallway, running as fast as I could, clutching the briefcase tight against my chest. He was an older man. Slower. But he knew this building better than I did. By the time I reached the stairwell, he had fired twice more. Both missed, but they echoed dangerously close.

I sprinted down the stairs, taking them three at a time, my heart hammering against my ribs. I burst out onto the street and threw myself into my car, locking the doors just as Arthur appeared in the entranceway. He raised the gun again—but sirens wailed in the distance. My security team. The police. Someone had called.

Arthur hesitated. Glared at me with pure, unmasked hatred. Then he turned and vanished back inside the building.

I peeled away from the curb, driving with shaking hands, the ledgers safe beside me on the passenger seat. He had tried to kill me. In his own office. With proof of everything he had done already in my possession. He knew he was cornered. Which meant he would grow more desperate. More violent. Far less careful.

When I arrived home, the guards confirmed the watchers had fled the moment my security team approached. Grace stood waiting by the front door. She rushed into my arms the moment I stepped inside, burying her face against my chest.

"I was so afraid," she whispered. "I thought… I thought he had gotten to you."

"He tried," I said, holding her tightly. "But he failed. And now I have proof of everything. The fraud. The bribes. Even… my father’s murder."

Grace pulled back, her eyes widening.

"His murder?"

I nodded.

"Arthur killed him. Three years ago. And he has been manipulating everything ever since. Me. Victoria. Even you and Lily. He believes he is entitled to everything. And he believes Lily is the only thing standing in his way."

Grace went very pale.

"Then he will not stop. Not until she is gone."

"Which is exactly why we cannot stay here," I said. "We cannot fight him from inside our own home. He knows too many people. He has paid off too many officers. Too many judges. If we go to the police now… there is a very real chance he will have the evidence suppressed. Or disappear us before we even reach the courthouse."

Grace looked down at her hands. She took a long, shaky breath.

"There is another way," she said quietly. "Victoria told me something once. Before… before everything happened. She said Arthur keeps a safe-deposit box. Downtown. Number 714. She said it holds the original copies of everything. Deeds. Accounts. Real estate holdings. Everything he would need to disappear and start over if this day ever came."

I stared at her.

"You want to rob a bank safe-deposit box?"

"I want to strip him of every weapon he holds over us," Grace said, her voice steady now, rising with conviction. "If we take his backups… he has nothing left to bargain with. Nothing to threaten us with. Only then can we safely go to the authorities. Only then will he be truly powerless."

I looked at her. At the woman I had once believed to be a quiet housekeeper. At the strength she had carried in silence all these years. And I realized she was right. Arthur had built his power on secrets. On leverage. On holding things over people. If we took that away… he was just an old man with a gun.

"Then we do it tonight," I said. "Before he realizes we are still alive. Before he moves his things. Before he runs."

Grace nodded slowly. But her expression remained heavy.

"There is one more thing, Nathan. Victoria… she said something else. Something I did not want to believe. But if Arthur killed your father… then it is true."

"What?"

Grace looked me dead in the eye.