MY HUSBAND KICKED ME TO THE FLOOR TO PROTECT HIS MISTRESS—BUT WHEN I PLAYED A SECRET RECORDING, HIS OWN LOVER TURNED AGAINST HIM! WHAT SHE HEARD LEFT EVERYONE SPEECHLESS...

"Shut it down!" Caroline screamed, all aristocratic composure dissolving into raw, ugly panic. She lunged across the mahogany table toward the podium. "Shut the terminal down, Daniel! Kill her!"

Daniel drew a suppressed Glock from his shoulder holster with blinding speed, leveling it directly at Sophia's forehead.

"Back away from the console, Sophia," Daniel hissed, his voice trembling with manic desperation. "I swear to God, I will paint this entire boardroom with your brains!"

Sophia didn't blink. She leaned down, bringing her left eye inches from the glowing optical lens.

"Julian had one rule, Daniel," Sophia whispered, her voice chilling the room to absolute silence. "He said that a man who steals from his enemies is a businessman. But a man who steals from his family is a dead man."

The retinal scanner flashed bright blue.

*COMMAND OVERRIDE ACCEPTED: THE DEAD HAND PROTOCOL ACTIVATED. BROADCASTING GLOBAL ASSET LIQUIDATION TO ALL REGULATORY AUTHORITIES.*

"NO!" Daniel shrieked.

He squeezed the trigger.

Miller moved with superhuman speed, throwing his body between Daniel’s gun and Sophia. The suppressed shot struck Miller high in the right shoulder, spinning the agent around with a grunt of pain as he fell against the conference table.

Before Daniel could acquire a second sight picture, Caroline lunged at him, her manicured fingers clawing violently at his eyes.

"You fool!" Caroline screamed like a banshee. "You've ruined us! You've destroyed the entire trust!"

Daniel snarled, striking Caroline across the face with the heavy steel slide of his weapon. The matriarch collapsed backward onto the floor, blood pouring from her split lip, her designer clothes disheveled as the board members scrambled frantically for the fire exits in a chorus of terrified shrieks.

Daniel turned back to Sophia, his face twisted into a mask of pure, murderous psychopathy.

"If I'm burning, Sophia," Daniel roared, raising the weapon, "you burn with me!"

Sophia didn't flee. As Daniel lunged forward, she seized the heavy bronze statue of the blindfolded Lady Justice from Julian's ceremonial desk and hurled it with all her strength directly into Daniel's face.

The heavy bronze struck Daniel across the bridge of his nose with a sickening crunch. He staggered backward, blinded by his own blood, firing a wild round that shattered the massive panoramic window behind him.

A terrifying vacuum of sixty-mile-per-hour November wind and freezing sleet howled into the boardroom through the shattered glass, scattering hundreds of legal documents into the sky like a flock of white, dying birds.

Daniel tripped over Caroline's outstretched legs, his back slamming against the low glass threshold of the shattered frame.

Sophia stepped forward through the howling gale, her black coat whipping around her, her eyes locked onto the man she had loved, the man who had murdered her father, the man who had turned her life into a graveyard.

Daniel hung precariously over the abyss, his fingers desperately clawing at the polished chrome window frame. Beneath his dangling feet, the tiny yellow taxis of Park Avenue crawled eight hundred feet below in the swirling mist.

"Sophia!" Daniel begged, his voice stripped of all arrogance, all mockery, reduced to the pathetic whimper of a trapped rat. "Sophia, please! You love me! It was Caroline's idea! She forced me to do it! Pull me up! PULL ME UP!"

Sophia stopped three inches from the edge. The freezing rain stung her cheeks, washing the blood from her skin.

She looked down into Daniel's terror-stricken eyes.

"Did you really think garden shears were the only thing that could kill a Sterling, Daniel?" Sophia whispered into the wind.

She reached out.

For a second, Daniel thought she was offering her hand. A glimmer of desperate, pathetic hope flared in his eyes.

Sophia’s fingers wrapped around the silver wedding band on her left ring finger. With a slow, deliberate motion, she slid the platinum ring off her finger.

She dropped the ring straight onto Daniel’s bloody forehead.

Daniel’s grip slipped from the wet chrome.