My husband walked into my Businesswoman of the Year ceremony in Chicago with his mistress

"Vincent," Arthur coughed, his knuckles turning white as he gripped his wife’s hand. "I should have known Drake wasn't working alone."

"Drake was an uncouth brute who liked blood too much," Vincent Sterling said, stepping casually into the server room while his mercenaries kept their weapons aimed at Julian, Eleanor, and me. "My son Marcus, unfortunately, inherited his mother's complete lack of spine. He was supposed to seduce your brilliant daughter, Arthur, quietly liquidate her inheritance, and hand me the keys to this vault. Instead, he let his cheap, blonde mistress ruin the entire operation at a public awards ceremony."

Vincent sneered, his gaze sweeping over me with disgusting condescension. "You really are a magnificent bitch, Elise. You destroyed my son, humiliated our family name, and dismantled Drake’s entire financial apparatus in forty-eight hours. But you are still just an arrogant girl playing a game created by gods."

"Your 'gods' bleed just like anyone else, Vincent," I said, my voice dropping into an icy register that made his smirk falter slightly. "Marcus died a coward in a federal lockup, crying for his lawyers. And you're hiding in an alpine bunker trying to rob a dying man because you're terrified of what's inside this computer."

"I'm not robbing him, darling," Vincent purred, pulling a gold-plated semi-automatic pistol from his jacket. "I'm executing him. And once you and your mother are dead, I will take your thumb and your dead father's eyeball, unlock that console, and transfer every penny of the Vance legacy into my private accounts."

"Julian," I whispered under my breath, my lips barely moving.

"On your mark," Julian breathed back, his fingers resting millimetres from the tactical release on his vest.

"Vincent," I said loudly, taking a deliberate step toward the central console, placing myself between his gun and my father’s bed. "You missed one critical detail in your little master plan."

Vincent tilted his head, amused. "And what would that be, Mrs. Cross?"

"My father built the biometric lock to recognize my DNA," I said, a slow, venomous smile spreading across my lips. "He also built it to recognize heart rate."

With a blindingly fast movement, I slammed my right palm onto the glass pedestal.

*GENETIC SCAN CONFIRMED. HOSTILE BIO-SIGNATURE DETECTED. SYSTEM ENGAGING DEFENSIVE PROTOCOL ZERO.*

The server room instantly plunged into pitch-black darkness.

"Fire!" Vincent screamed.

Muzzle flashes strobed through the vault, deafening cracks echoing off the reinforced concrete. But Julian had already moved.

He didn't just fire; he closed the distance in the dark, using the night-vision optics built into his tactical contact lenses. A wet, sickening crack echoed through the room as Julian snapped the neck of the first mercenary, snatching the man’s combat shotgun and firing two deafening rounds into the second.

Eleanor was already rolling across the floor, her suppressed pistol spitting three rapid rounds that dropped the third guard against the mainframe server.

I didn't cower. I grabbed the heavy bronze bust of my grandfather from the display console beside me and swung with everything I had into the face of the fourth operative who stumbled toward me in the dark. The metal connected with a brutal crunch of cartilage, sending him sprawling across the marble tiles.

The emergency lights flickered back on—red, pulsing, and ominous.

Vincent Sterling stood against the blast door, his bespoke suit spattered with his guards' blood, his hand trembling as he raised his gold pistol toward my chest.

"You ruined everything!" he shrieked, his aristocratic veneer shattering into pathetic, desperate insanity. "I built this empire! I am an Arbiter of the Obsidian—"

A single shot rang out.

Vincent’s eyes went wide. A neat, red hole appeared directly between his eyebrows.

He slid down the blast door, leaving a smear of dark crimson against the steel, before collapsing onto the floor, lifeless.

I turned around.

Standing behind me, holding Julian’s secondary sidearm with both hands, was my mother. Eleanor lowered the smoking barrel, her face carved from stone.