At my wedding, my sister grabbed me and shoved me straight through a glass door. “Ugly bride!” she laughed, then told everyone to calm down because it was “just a joke

“Don't move, Detective,” Bennett said smoothly, his voice devoid of any legal decorum. “Keep your hands away from your holster, or this ends very messily for everyone in this room.”

Vasquez froze, his hands hovering six inches above his duty belt. His jaw clenched, but he didn't draw. He was a veteran cop; he knew when he was outpositioned.

Daniel stepped into the master bedroom, his eyes drifting over the open attaché case at my feet. A bitter, cold smirk played at the corners of his mouth.

“I had a tracking air-tag sewn into the lining of that leather, Claire,” Daniel said, shaking his head with mild disappointment. “Did you really think I wouldn't notice the alert on my phone the second the case left the closet shelf?”

“You’re Arthur’s son,” I said, rising slowly to my feet. I stood between Daniel and the audio tapes, my chin lifted, refusing to let him see the terror clawing at my throat. “You married me to steal my grandfather’s money.”

“I married you to take back what was stolen from my mother,” Daniel corrected, his voice dropping into a dark, venomous hiss. “Your grandfather kept my mother in an apartment on the south side of Richmond for twelve years like a dirty little secret. When he died, he left fifty million dollars to a pair of spoiled, dysfunctional brats who didn't work a day in their lives. Vanessa is a psychopath, and you’re a fragile little shadow who hides behind watercolor paintings. Neither of you deserved a single penny of Arthur’s empire.”

“And you think you deserve it?” Vasquez spat. “You’re looking at twenty-five years in federal prison for conspiracy to commit murder, Vance. We have the tapes.”

“No,” Bennett interrupted, raising the suppressed pistol until the black barrel was leveled directly at Vasquez’s chest. “You don't have the tapes, Detective. Because neither you nor Mrs. Vance are going to leave this apartment alive.”

“A murder-suicide?” I asked, my voice remarkably steady. “Is that the plan, Bennett? A rogue detective tries to extract an unstable heiress, her husband arrives to intervene, shots are fired? Do you really think forensics won't tear that apart?”

“In Henrico County?” Bennett smiled thinly. “With your father signing the death certificates? It will be wrapped up and cremated before the weekend, Claire.”

“You forgot one thing, Daniel,” I said softly.

Daniel frowned, his eyes narrowing. “What’s that?”

“Vanessa.”

From the hallway outside the master bedroom, the front door of the apartment didn't open.

It was kicked off its hinges.

*BANG.*

The deafening crash echoed down the corridor, followed instantly by the violent, manic screaming of a woman who had completely lost her mind.

“DANIEL!”

Bennett flinched, his eyes darting toward the hallway.

That split second was all Vasquez needed.

The detective dropped his weight, lunged forward with explosive speed, and struck Bennett’s right wrist with the heel of his palm. The suppressed Glock fired once—a dull, muffled *pfft*—and the bullet tore into the drywall near the ceiling.

Vasquez tackled Bennett to the hardwood floor, the two men rolling violently in a tangle of limbs and desperate punches.

Daniel stepped back in shock, reaching frantically for the attaché case on the bed.

I didn't hesitate.

I grabbed the heavy bronze desk lamp from the nightstand and swung it with all the strength in my body.

The base of the lamp struck Daniel squarely across the temple.

He let out a choked gasp, stumbling backward, crashing into the mirrored closet doors. The mirrored glass shattered into a spiderweb of silver cracks, raining sharp shards down around his shoulders as he collapsed onto the carpet, dazed and bleeding from his forehead.

I scooped up the audio recorder and the cassette tapes, shoving them into my coat pocket.

In the doorway, Vanessa appeared.

She was drenched in rain, her hair plastered against her skull, her eyes wild, bloodshot, and wide with paranoid fury. In her right hand, she held my father’s surgical scalpel, its stainless-steel blade gleaming in the dim bedroom light.

She looked at Daniel lying on the floor. She looked at Bennett pinned beneath Vasquez.

And then she looked at me.

“You took the tapes,” Vanessa whispered, her chest heaving violently. “He recorded me. He told me he was going to erase them after the wedding, but he kept them! He was going to send me to prison!”

“He was using you, Vanessa!” I yelled, holding the recorder out like a shield. “He was using both of us!”

“Nobody uses me!” she screamed.