She believed a brutal attack inside a private hospital suite would destroy a billionaire’s marriage forever.

The private executive office on the nineteenth floor was eerily quiet, illuminated only by the pale moonlight streaming through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the city skyline.

Marcus, Khloe, and Victor stood in absolute silence before a heavy, brass-faced floor safe hidden behind a mahogany wall panel in the corner of the room.

The digital keypad on the safe face blinked with a steady, amber standby light.

"Elena mentioned my father's safe for a reason," Khloe said, her voice low as she watched Victor step forward. "She knew what was inside it before anyone else did."

"Your father trusted no one blindly—not even me," Victor said, his fingers hovering over the keypad. "When he founded this hospital, he placed his most sensitive personal trust documents in this vault, sealed with a biometric and numeric dual-authentication protocol."

"Can you open it?" Marcus asked, his arms crossed over his chest, his eyes fixed on the heavy steel door.

"I have the numeric master code," Victor replied, pressing a sequence of numbers into the pad. 7-4-9-2-1-0.

The keypad beeped twice, then flashed a sharp, warning red.

Biometric scan required.

Victor pressed his right thumb against the optical scanner beside the pad.

A harsh mechanical buzz echoed through the room.

Access Denied. Primary Key Expired.

"Expired?" Marcus frowned, stepping closer. "How can a master key expire?"

"Because," a cold, familiar voice echoed from the dark doorway behind them, "it wasn't meant to be opened by a Vance."

All three of them spun around.

Leaning against the doorframe, handcuffed with her hands secured in front of her by a flexible zip-tie, stood Isabella.

She had managed to slip away from the holding cell downstairs during the chaos of Elena's arrest, her hair slightly disheveled, but her eyes burning with a desperate, triumphant madness.

"Isabella!" Victor shouted, lunging forward, but two federal agents came rushing down the hallway behind her, grabbing her shoulders and slamming her against the wall.

"Get your hands off me!" Isabella shrieked, laughing hysterically as she looked directly at Khloe. "You think you defeated us? You think Arthur and Elena were running the show?"

"Shut your mouth," Marcus growled, stepping toward her with a menacing aura that made even the federal agents take a half-step back.

"Ask your uncle who really owned fifty-one percent of the hospital shares before the merger, Marcus!" Isabella screamed, spitting out the words like venom. "Ask him whose signature is actually on the founding trust!"

Victor froze.

His face turned the color of ash, his hands beginning to tremble as he stared at Isabella in absolute horror.

"Uncle Victor?" Khloe asked, turning slowly to look at him. "What is she talking about?"

Victor could not meet her eyes.

He slowly turned back toward the heavy safe, his hand reaching into his suit pocket to pull out a small, old, yellowed envelope that had been tucked away in his wallet for over twenty years.

He didn't say a word.

Instead, he slid the old paper envelope into the manual override slot beneath the safe's digital keypad.