2A private jet was waiting to take me to Chicago when my seven-year-old daughter grabbed my sleeve and whispered something that made me cancel the entire trip without telling a soul. “Dad, don’t go… Grandma takes me to a secret place when you’re gone, and she says I’m never allowed to tell you.” By that afternoon, I was following them myself—and what I saw made every instinct in me turn cold.

The sound of shattering glass echoed through the study like a gunshot.

Jessi jumped, looking down at her mother in shock. "Mom! Are you okay?"

Wendy was on her knees, her manicured hands scrambling to pick up the sharp crystal shards, her face bright red. "Oh dear! I am so clumsy today! My wrist just slipped... David, I am so sorry about your rug!"

"Don't worry about the rug, Wendy," I said calmly, stepping over the puddle of scotch to pull her up by her elbow. Her arm was trembling under my grip. "It’s just glass."

Jessi looked at me, her brow furrowed in genuine confusion. "David, what did you just ask me? Apex Logistics?"

I kept my eyes locked on Jessi’s face. "Yes. A commercial logistics firm operating out of an industrial park in Bridgeport. Does the company ring a bell?"

Jessi shook her head slowly, without a single flicker of hesitation or anxiety in her eyes. "No... should it? Is it one of your new corporate acquisition targets?"

She doesn't know.

The realization crashed through me like a wave of cold relief. Jessi wasn't part of the conspiracy. She wasn't lying to me. Her mother was manipulating her just as ruthlessly as she was manipulating Fiona.

"No," I lied smoothly. "Just a small freight vendor my risk management team was reviewing this morning. Forget I mentioned it."

"Alright..." Jessi said slowly, looking between me and her mother with a faint sense of unease. "I’m going upstairs to check on Fiona."

Once Jessi’s footsteps faded down the hall, I turned back to Wendy.

She was standing near the door, clutching her purse against her chest like a shield, breathing shallowly.

"I think I should go back to the cottage now, David," Wendy stammered, her voice thin as paper. "I feel a terrible migraine coming on."

"Of course, Wendy," I said, stepping aside. "Get some rest. We have a big family dinner scheduled for tomorrow night."

She didn't answer. She practically ran out of the study, her heels clicking frantically across the marble foyer until the front door clicked shut.

I didn't wait.

The moment she left, I locked the study door, walked over to my desk, and pressed a hidden button beneath the mahogany frame. A side panel slid open, revealing a secure monitor screen connected directly to Marcus’s surveillance grid.

"Marcus," I spoke into the desktop mic.

"I’m here, David," Marcus answered through the speaker. "We just established full digital tap on Wendy’s mobile phone and installed long-range directional cameras on the trees facing her cottage."

"Show me her phone activity," I ordered.

A real-time data log populated the screen.

Ten seconds after leaving my main house, Wendy’s phone had placed an outbound call to an untraceable burner number in Bridgeport.

I pressed the audio playback icon.

Wendy’s voice leaked through the speakers, shrill and frantic:

"Julian! We have a major problem! David didn't go to Chicago! He’s home!"

Julian’s deep, rough voice replied after a two-second pause:

"Did he see you at the warehouse?"

"I don't know!" Wendy wailed into her phone, pacing across her cottage living room on the video monitor. "He asked Jessi about Apex Logistics right in front of me! He knows the company name, Julian! If he runs a financial check on Apex, he’s going to trace the offshore shell accounts straight back to your trust in Nassau!"

Julian let out a cold, dark laugh over the line.

"Let him check, Wendy. David Sterling thinks he’s a big shot corporate raider because he plays with hedge funds. He has no idea who he’s dealing with. Does he still think the kid is his?"

"Yes!" Wendy hissed. "He talked about adding fifty million to her trust today!"

"Good," Julian growled. "Then we proceed with Phase Two tomorrow night. Once the trust signatures are notarized, we execute the asset transfer. If David gets in the way... we make sure his second flight out of Teterboro doesn't land."

The line went dead.

I sat back in my leather chair, staring at the screen.

They were planning to kill me.

It wasn't just a financial scam to steal my daughter's inheritance. Julian Vance and Wendy had been orchestrating a long-term corporate execution. They were waiting for me to sign the fifty-million-dollar irrevocable trust transfer, after which my death would be arranged to look like another tragic corporate accident—leaving Wendy as the primary guardian of the trust and Jessi as the grieving widow once again.

I leaned forward, tapping the mic.

"Marcus."

"I heard it, David," Marcus said, his tone grim. "That was a direct threat on your life. I’m contacting federal authorities—"

"No," I interrupted coldly. "No police. Not yet."

"David, they just threatened to sabotage your aircraft!"

"And now we know their entire playbook," I said, my eyes blazing with a dangerous, dark fire. "They want a trust transfer tomorrow night? We’re going to give them one. But it’s not going to be a fifty-million-dollar payout."

"What are you going to do?" Marcus asked.

"I’m going to dig up Julian Vance’s real grave," I replied. "I want full forensic financials on Apex Logistics by midnight. I want every bank account, every offshore shell, every contact Julian has made for the last eight years. And Marcus?"