You’ll only embarrass me wearing that dress.

The gala continued in an intoxicating blur of champagne, classical waltzes, and glowing accolades.

Phoebe stood near the edge of the mezzanine, watching the glittering spectacle below. Raymond was laughing with European ambassadors near the ice sculpture, looking younger and happier than she had ever seen him.

Ethan stepped up behind her, sliding his arms around her waist, resting his chin gently on her bare shoulder. His warmth seeped through the velvet of her emerald dress.

"Tired?" he murmured softly against her ear.

"Never," Phoebe whispered, leaning back against his chest. "Just... savoring the peace. It feels strange not having to check the shadows for snipers or margin calls."

"Get used to it," Ethan smiled, kissing the curve of her neck. "Tomorrow, our private jet takes us to Bora Bora. No phones, no boardrooms, no corporate filings for two full weeks."

Phoebe turned in his arms, smiling up at him. "A billionaire without a phone? I'll believe that when I see it, Ethan Vance."

Ethan chuckled, taking a sip from his fresh champagne flute. "For you, Phoebe, I would throw every satellite Vance Capital owns into the sun."

He took another sip.

Suddenly, Ethan’s smile faltered.

His brow furrowed in sharp confusion. He blinked hard, once, twice, shaking his head as if trying to clear a sudden, blinding fog. The crystal champagne flute in his hand began to tremble violently.

Phoebe’s smile vanished instantly. Her instincts flared into acute panic. "Ethan? What's wrong?"

"I... I don't know," Ethan muttered, his voice suddenly thick, slurred, and terrifyingly weak. "The room... it's spinning..."

Before Phoebe could reach out, the crystal flute slipped from Ethan's fingers, shattering into dozens of sharp fragments across the parquet floor.

Ethan’s knees buckled.

"Ethan!" Phoebe screamed, lunging forward and catching his broad frame before he hit the ground. His full weight bore down on her as she sank to her knees, cradling his head in her lap.

His skin had turned a sickening, ash-grey color within seconds. Dark, broken capillaries bloomed across his temples. His breathing was rapid, shallow, and rattling with terrifying fluid buildup.

"Ethan! Look at me! Ethan!" Phoebe shouted, panic tearing through her chest like a razor.

The music in the ballroom abruptly stopped. Screams erupted among the elite guests on the dance floor as security guards began shouting and drawing perimeters.

"Call an ambulance! NOW!" Phoebe screamed across the mezzanine, her fingers frantically checking Ethan’s pulse. His heart was fluttering erratically—nearly two hundred beats per minute, fibrillating under the influence of an aggressive, targeted neurotoxin.

Ethan looked up at her, his pupils dilated into black saucers, struggling to speak through paralyzed lips. "Phoebe... not... not Eleanor..."

His eyes rolled back into his head. His body seized violently in her arms, then went entirely limp.

"ETHAN! NO!" Phoebe cried, pressing her hands against his chest, beginning desperate CPR compressions as tears of terror streamed down her face. "Don't you dare leave me! Ethan! BREATHE!"

Right at that exact second, the heavy diamond bracelet on Phoebe’s wrist—the Harrell family heirloom she had worn tonight—vibrated.

It was not a traditional piece of jewelry. Concealed within the antique gold clasp was an ultra-miniature satellite transceiver, blinking with an urgent, pulsing purple light.

Her phone in her clutch bag buzzed violently with an incoming video transmission.

With trembling, blood-chilled fingers, Phoebe snatched the phone, opening the feed.

The video did not show Lake Como. Nor did it show a prison cell.

The video feed was broadcasting live from the subterranean sub-basement of the Vance Family ancestral estate in Rhode Island—inside the private, biometric vault that only three people on Earth had the codes to open.

Sitting tied to a heavy steel chair inside the vault, beaten bloody and unconscious, was Raymond Harrell.

Phoebe’s breath froze in her throat. She looked down at the ballroom floor—the man laughing with ambassadors was an imposter, a body double dressed in Raymond's exact tuxedo.

And standing over the real Raymond Harrell in the Rhode Island vault was a woman dressed in an exquisite, high-collared mourning coat of raven-black silk.

The woman stepped into the light of the camera.

She was not Eleanor Harrell.

She was Victoria Vance—Ethan Vance’s biological mother, who had allegedly died in an alpine plane crash twenty years ago.

Victoria looked directly into the camera lens, holding a small silver vial containing the antidote to the neurotoxin currently killing Ethan in Phoebe's arms.

Victoria smiled—a smile of pure, demonic perfection that made Eleanor Harrell look like an amateur.

"Did you really think Eleanor was the mastermind, little girl?" Victoria Vance whispered into the microphone, her voice cold as an arctic grave. "Eleanor was just the accountant. I built this game before you were even born."

Victoria tilted the silver antidote vial between her fingers, dangling it over an open drainage grate in the concrete floor.

"You have twenty minutes to bring me the Vance-Harrell master ledger, Phoebe," Victoria purred with terrifying calm. "Choose quickly. Save your father... or let my son choke on his own blood."