“Take your hands off my wife.” Dominic Carver’s voice cracked across the marble foyer so sharply that both security men froze. Claire did not.

The lower vault office beneath the Carver mansion was a subterranean fortress. Reinforced steel doors, independent air filtration, and monitors showing every angle of the estate's fifty acres.

Claire sat at the stainless-steel desk in the corner. She didn't cry. She didn't rage. Instead, she pulled her personal laptop out of her bag—the one Dominic’s men had searched twenty minutes prior.

Dominic walked into the room ten minutes later. His cut temple had been cleaned and bandaged, and he had changed into a clean black shirt, rolling the sleeves up to his elbows. He set a bottle of water down beside her laptop.

"Drink," he ordered softly.

Claire ignored the water. "Your men are terrible auditors, Dominic."

Dominic paused, leaning his hip against the edge of the desk. "They're security guards, not accountants."

"Clearly," Claire said bitterly, her fingers flying across her keyboard. "They looked for bank statements and wire confirmation receipts. They didn't look at the system architecture."

Dominic watched her. "What are you doing?"

"I am proving that I don't care about your four million dollars," she replied without looking up. "Because unlike you, I don't operate on feelings and suspicion. I operate on numbers. Numbers don't lie. Men do."

Dominic leaned down, placing both palms flat on the desk, bringing his face close to hers. "Claire, I was angry. Julian showed me IP logs from your terminal. I was blind with rage because the thought of you betraying me—"

"The thought of me betraying you gave you an excuse to protect yourself," Claire interrupted, finally turning her head to meet his eyes. "You've been waiting for the other shoe to drop since the day we got married. You couldn't believe a normal woman who didn't care about your money or your mafia empire actually loved you. So the second someone handed you a reason to doubt me, you jumped on it because it was safer than being vulnerable."

Dominic went dead silent. The truth of her words hit him squarely in the chest.

He had built an empire by trusting no one. When he fell in love with Claire—with her fierce intelligence, her refusal to be intimidated, her soft curves that drove him wild—it had terrified him. When the money went missing, his defensive instincts had taken over.

"Look at this," Claire said, turning the laptop screen toward him.

Dominic looked down at the lines of green code scrolling across the screen.

"This is the Carver Relief Fund ledger," Claire explained, her finger tapping a specific line of code. "The four million didn't leave at 2:00 PM today when I was logged in. The timestamp was spoofed. Look at the routing node."

Dominic leaned closer, his eyes narrowing. "That's an internal node."

"It came from inside this house," Claire said flatly. "Specifically, from the terminal in the library. At 3:15 AM yesterday morning. Where were you at 3:15 AM yesterday morning, Dominic?"

Dominic's eyes hardened into absolute ice. "I was in bed with you."

"Exactly," Claire said. "And where was your cousin Julian?"

Dominic didn't answer. He didn't need to. Julian had stayed overnight at the mansion on Thursday after a late-night meeting regarding the family's shipping contracts.

Before Dominic could speak, the intercom on the wall buzzed loudly.

"Boss," Marcus's voice came through the speaker, tight and urgent. "Julian just arrived at the front gate. He says he heard about the shooting and brought his personal security team to secure the perimeter."