The private elevator of the Solmere Hotel was lined with dark burl wood and brushed bronze, a claustrophobic box that smelled faintly of expensive leather and ozone.

The holding cell at the federal precinct downtown smelled of stale coffee, disinfectant, and unwashed fear.

Julian Vance sat at the bolted-down steel table, his expensive charcoal suit wrinkled, his silk tie ripped off and tossed onto the floor. His hair, usually meticulously styled, fell across his forehead in damp strands. He kept staring at his own hands, opening and closing them as if he couldn't comprehend why they weren't signing multi-million-dollar contracts at this exact second.

The heavy steel door swung open with a loud metallic clank.

Two federal agents walked in, carrying a thick manila folder, followed by a slim, elegant figure in a sharp black trench coat.

Seraphina Vane.

Julian’s head snapped up. His eyes bulged with fury, and he lunged forward, the heavy steel handcuffs chaining his wrists to the table rattling violently against the metal.

"You!" Julian screamed, spitting flecks of saliva across the table. "You bitch! You engineered this! You stole my life! I built this empire while you were hiding in whatever rat hole you crawled out of!"

Seraphina didn't flinch. She walked slowly to the opposite side of the table, pulled out the metal chair, and sat down. She folded her hands in front of her, looking at her cousin with a gaze so cold it made the federal agents step back half a step.

"You didn't build anything, Julian," Seraphina said, her voice dangerously quiet. "You inherited a chair, and you spent five years trying to burn the house down to collect the insurance payout."

"The board will never let you stay!" Julian laughed, a high-pitched, manic sound that echoed off the concrete walls. "You think you can run a global hotel conglomerate by yourself? You're a ghost! You don't exist!"

"I exist enough to sign your arrest warrant," Seraphina replied, sliding a single sheet of paper across the table.

Julian glanced down at it. It wasn't a corporate document. It was a bank transfer receipt—dated three years ago, originating from a Swiss account in Zurich, bearing his exact personal digital signature, and addressed to a professional hitman known in French intelligence circles as Le Boucher.

The color drained from Julian's face for the second time that day, leaving him looking ghastly under the flickering fluorescent light.

"Where... where did you get this?" he whispered, his voice cracking.

"Did you really think that when your little hit squad pushed my car off the Corniche in Nice, I was sitting in the driver's seat?" Seraphina leaned forward, resting her chin on her knuckles. "My driver, Pierre, had been warning me for weeks that someone was tampering with the steering column. We knew you were coming, Julian. We just wanted to see how far your greed would take you."

Julian stared at the paper, his mouth trembling. "You... you staged your own death?"

"I gave you enough rope to hang yourself," Seraphina said simply. "And today, you tied the knot."

She stood up, smoothing down her coat, and turned toward the door.

"Wait!" Julian cried out, slamming his cuffed hands against the table as the federal agents stepped forward to block him. "Seraphina! Please! We're family! We can make a deal! I'll give you everything—every offshore account, every property deed! Just don't let them send me down for this!"

Seraphina paused at the door, glancing back over her shoulder one last time.