A Billionaire Dragged a Pregnant Woman by Her Hair at a Masquerade Ball—Until Her Sister Fought Back! But When a Golden Harp Crashed to the Floor, It Exposed a Locked Chest Hiding a Terrified 7-Year-Old Boy. What the Child Whispered Next Left Everyone Frozen in Horror!

Vivian gasped, dropping her crystal champagne flute onto the Persian rug, the glass shattering into a hundred glittering shards. She backed away toward the floor-to-ceiling glass windows, her eyes bulging in utter, paralyzed horror as she stared at Lena, drenched in rain, soot-stained, and holding a pistol with unwavering focus.

"You..." Vivian choked out, her face draining of color. "You're dead! You burned!"

"You should have checked the basement, Vivian," Lena said coldly, taking two deliberate steps into the room.

Judge Montgomery Albright didn't flinch. Sitting behind an immense desk carved from solid black walnut, the silver-haired jurist simply leaned back in his leather chair, a silk-collared robe draped over his shoulders. His gray eyes—the same gray eyes Oliver had described—were as cold and lifeless as granite.

"Remarkable," Albright murmured, swirling a glass of twenty-year-old scotch. "The stubborn resilience of the lower classes never ceases to amaze me. You dragged yourself out of a burning cellar and swam through a gale just to die on my carpet, Miss Dawson?"

"The Coast Guard has your coordinates, Albright," Lena lied, keeping her weapon locked between his eyes. "The titanium drive from the safehouse is already broadcasting Daniel’s confession to every federal server in Washington."

Albright smiled—a slow, patronizing smirk that chilled Lena to the bone.

"Do you really believe the federal government is your savior, my dear girl?" Albright said softly. "Who do you think authorized the raid on the farmhouse? Who do you think appointed me to the bench twenty-five years ago? The men who built this nation’s financial infrastructure don't answer to federal servers. We *are* the servers."

He slowly reached toward the desk intercom, but Lena raised her weapon. "Touch that button and your brains will decorate that wall."

"Go ahead and shoot him, Lena!" a voice suddenly barked from the shadows behind the salon’s velvet curtains.

The heavy drapery was yanked aside, and a man stepped out into the light, holding a silenced pistol pointed directly at Lena’s temple.

Lena’s heart plummeted.

It was Senator William Vance—the head of the Senate Judiciary Committee, the man who had stood on the courthouse steps yesterday demanding Arthur Sterling’s head on a spike.

"The theater never stops, does it?" Lena whispered, realization washing over her like a bucket of ice water. "Arthur wasn't the monster. He was just the scapegoat. You two organized the masquerade. You set up the hit."

"Arthur was getting weak in his old age," Vance said smoothly, circling around Lena to cut off her line of sight to the door. "He developed a conscience. He wanted to leave his legitimate estate to Daniel and that trailer-park whore’s bastard child. Forty billion dollars, Lena! Siphoned out of our shadow defense programs and handed to a seven-year-old boy! We couldn't allow that kind of capital to fall out of our control."

"And Rachel?" Lena hissed, her grip tightening on the trigger. "What did she ever do to you?"

"She had Daniel's baby in her belly," Vivian spat, finding her courage now that Vance held the upper hand. "A second claimant to the trust! A second legal heir! She was supposed to miscarry at the ball when Arthur assaulted her! But you... you ruined everything when you smashed that golden harp!"

"The harp was a work of art," Albright sighed, standing up and straightening his silk cuffs. "A pity it was destroyed. But no matter. Senator, kill her. Throw the body into the propeller wash. We have a flight to catch."

Vance smiled, his finger tightening on the trigger of his silenced weapon.

"Any last words, Miss Dawson?"