She threw wet trash at the servant's face. The servant dropped her to the floor.

The penthouse study was lit only by the pale blue glow of three dual-monitor workstations arrayed across an oversized mahogany desk. Victoria stood behind Richard, her dark hair still pinned in its severe bun, watching lines of green and white code cascade down the central screen. The encrypted USB drive Marcus had provided rested beside the keyboard like a dormant fuse.

"He wasn't lying," Richard said, his fingers flying across the mechanical keyboard with frantic speed. "The file structure is intact. We have the offshore ledgers, the shell company registry, and... God." Richard stopped typing, his hand hovering over the enter key.

"And?" Victoria prompted, leaning slightly closer.

"The audio file," Richard clicked the mouse. A waveform appeared on the screen, followed by a harsh, metallic hiss of twenty-five-year-old analog audio converted to digital.

Richard hit play.

The tinny voice of a younger Jonathan Sterling filled the quiet room, speaking over a crackling telephone line. "The Vance woman is becoming a liability. If the municipal transit bids go to her firm, our Cayman accounts are exposed. Handle it."

Another voice, coarse and low, replied: "Car accident?"

Sterling’s voice was chillingly casual. "Make it look like mechanical failure. She shouldn't have been poking around in accounts that don't belong to her."

The audio ended with a sharp click.

In the silence that followed, the weight of the past quarter-century seemed to settle upon the room. Victoria did not flinch, nor did she sigh. She simply reached out with her gloved hand, lifted the heavy red gemstone ring on her left finger, and rotated it half an inch.

"Copy the file to twenty independent secure nodes," Victoria instructed, her voice steady and devoid of tremor. "Send copies to the Department of Justice’s internal integrity unit, the New York Times investigative desk, and the Senate Banking Committee. Set the release timer for tomorrow morning at 8:00 AM sharp."

Richard turned in his chair, looking up at his sister with a mixture of awe and apprehension. "Victoria, once that hits the wire, there’s no walking it back. It’s a nuclear strike. Sterling has powerful allies in the White House. They will try to bury this as a national security breach."

"Let them try," Victoria said. "National security doesn't cover laundering cartel money and murdering American citizens to protect real estate speculation. When the public sees those documents alongside the audio recording, no amount of political spin will save him."

"And Arthur Montgomery?" Richard asked.

"Arthur is already finished," Victoria replied, walking toward the floor-to-ceiling window to look out at the glittering lights of Manhattan. "His logistics company is liquidated, his personal assets are frozen, and his daughter is currently packing her bags for a one-way flight to London because her credit cards have all been declined. We don't need to destroy Arthur anymore. He’s already a ghost."

"What about Julianne?" Richard asked, recalling the glamorous socialite who had slapped Victoria across the face just forty-eight hours ago.

"Julianne will learn what it means to live without a safety net," Victoria said coldly. "Just like I had to learn twenty-five years ago."

Her phone buzzed on the nearby console. It wasn't an encrypted line this time; it was a standard cellular call from an unknown local number. Victoria walked over, picked it up, and slid her thumb across the screen.

"Victoria Vance," she said.

"You’ve gone too far, girl," a voice hissed through the speaker. It wasn't Sterling. It sounded older, rougher—a fixer, or perhaps a remnant of an older, dirtier era of New York politics. "You think you’re holding all the cards, but you’ve kicked a hornet's nest you can't survive."

"Tell Jonathan that his time is up," Victoria replied evenly. "Tell him I’ll be waiting in my office at nine tomorrow morning when the federal marshals come to collect him."

"You think marshals are coming?" The voice let out a harsh, dry laugh. "People like Sterling don't get arrested, Victoria. People like Sterling disappear. And if you’re standing in the way when the tide comes in, you’ll go down with him."

The line went dead.

Victoria lowered the phone, her dark eyes narrowing. She looked down at her left hand, where the red gemstone gleamed under the penthouse lights. Her mother had worn that ring the night she died. Now, it was the target painted on Victoria’s back.

"Richard," Victoria said without turning around.

"Yeah?"

"Pack a go-bag and move your team to the secure safehouse in Westchester. Leave the main servers running on autopilot."

Richard stood up instantly, his instincts kicking in. "You think they’ll try something tonight?"