Chapter 7: The Midnight Audit**
At two in the morning, the mansion’s power grid abruptly failed. The chandeliers flickered out, plunging the grand corridors into pitch blackness. The backup generators hummed for three seconds before dying with a sickening mechanical groan.
Julian immediately grabbed a heavy flashlight from his desk drawer and sprinted up the stairs toward Lily’s bedroom.
Down the hallway, the beam of his light cut through rising smoke. The fire alarms remained dead—the system had been deliberately bypassed.
"Lily!" Julian shouted, slamming open the nursery door.
The bed was empty. The window facing the courtyard stood wide open, the velvet curtains whipping in the cold midnight wind.
Julian rushed to the sill. Below, in the gravel driveway, a black sedan was idling. Walter stood by the open passenger door, holding a struggling bundle wrapped in a pink blanket.
"Walter!" Julian bellowed from the second-story balcony.
Walter looked up, his face illuminated by the car’s taillights, cold and desperate. "Sign the transfer of conservatorship, Julian! Or the Thorne lineage ends tonight!"
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Julian didn't hesitate. He climbed over the iron railing of the balcony and dropped onto the roof of the portico, sliding down the limestone pillar to the ground below.
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