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...

The holding cell at the NYPD’s First Precinct smelled of industrial bleach, sour urine, and despair.

Daniel Vance sat on the cold steel bench, shivering in his torn trousers. They had taken his belt, his bespoke leather shoes, his Patek Philippe watch, and his platinum wedding ring. In their place, he wore paper slippers and an orange institutional smock.

His face throbbed where Sophia had struck him, and his knee was swollen from when the bystander had tackled him to the floor at L'Hiver. But the physical pain was nothing compared to the psychological terror gnawing at his gut.

The heavy iron door clicked open. Arthur Cross stepped into the interrogation room, his leather briefcase clutched tightly against his chest. His hair was disheveled, his eyes bloodshot behind his spectacles.

"Arthur!" Daniel scrambled to his feet, lunging toward the steel table. "Tell me you posted the bail. Tell me we’re getting out of here. Where is the judge? Where is my father?"

Arthur didn't sit down. He stood near the door, keeping a safe distance, looking at his client not with the deference of an expensive corporate consigliere, but with the cold detachment of a man watching an infected animal.

"Sit down, Daniel," Arthur said quietly.

"Don't tell me to sit down! I pay you eight hundred dollars an hour to get results! Why am I still in this cage?!"

"You're not getting bail, Daniel."

Daniel froze. The air left his lungs in a sharp wheeze. "What? What are you talking about? It’s an assault charge! A first offense misdemeanor domestic dispute—"

"It was an assault charge at eight o'clock tonight," Arthur interrupted, his voice devoid of emotion. "By ten o'clock, the Federal Bureau of Investigation unsealed a forty-seven-count indictment. Wire fraud. Bank fraud. Identity theft. Money laundering. And four counts of attempted second-degree murder by chemical poisoning."

Daniel’s knees buckled. He grabbed the edge of the steel table to keep from collapsing. "Attempted murder? That's ridiculous! They don't have proof! Brooks won't talk—I paid her millions!"

"Dr. Alana Brooks was arrested at JFK Airport three hours ago trying to board a private flight to Panama," Arthur said bluntly. "She cracked the second they put the cuffs on her. She turned state’s evidence in exchange for immunity from the federal death penalty. She gave them the transaction receipts, the digitalis delivery logs, and three audio recordings of you instructing her on how to slowly induce heart failure in your wife."

"No... no, no, no," Daniel whimpered, burying his hands in his thinning hair. "Arthur, my father. Call Senator Vance! He chairs the judiciary sub-committee! He can squash the federal indictment!"

Arthur let out a dry, humorless chuckle. "Your father issued a public press release twenty minutes ago. He officially disowned you. He stated that he is appalled by your monstrous actions, that you are no longer part of the Vance family, and that he will not use a single dollar of his campaign funds or personal wealth to assist in your defense."

"He... he abandoned me?" Daniel gasped, his chest heaving, his silver eyes wide with the realization of total abandonment. "My own father?"

"You're radioactive, Daniel. The video of you kicking Sophia in the ribs at L'Hiver has two hundred million views on social media. The audio of you calling Vanessa Sterling an 'empty-headed brat' and plotting her family's murder has been broadcast on CNN, Fox, and every major news network on the planet. You are the most hated man in North America tonight."

Daniel stumbled backward onto the steel bench, staring at the floor in disbelief. "The offshore accounts... Arthur, the Cayman funds! We can use the reserves to hire the best criminal defense team in the world. We’ll hire Dershowitz, we’ll hire anyone! Access the blind trust in Grand Cayman—the account code is Alpha-Seven-Nine—"

"The accounts are empty, Daniel."

Daniel’s head snapped up. "What?"

"The accounts are empty," Arthur repeated, opening his briefcase and pulling out an official transaction printout. "At 1:14 AM, someone using your secondary encryption keys and Miss Vanessa Sterling’s private proxy access executed a complete liquidation of the Cayman blind trust, the Zurich reserves, and the shell accounts in Nevis."

"Where did the money go?!" Daniel screamed, slamming his cuffed hands onto the steel table until his skin tore. "WHERE IS MY MONEY?!"

"Three hundred and twenty million dollars was transferred directly into an escrow account managed jointly by Sophia Vance and the Sterling Logistics Board of Directors," Arthur said. "They have already agreed to use the entire sum to repay the defrauded investors of Vance Capital and establish a national foundation for victims of domestic abuse."

Daniel slumped back against the cold, damp concrete wall. The room seemed to tilt on its axis.

He was penniless.

He was friendless.

His family had erased him.

His mistress had drained him.

His wife had destroyed him.

"Arthur..." Daniel wept, real tears of pathetic self-pity finally streaming down his bruised face. "You’ve represented my family for twenty years. You can't leave me. You have to represent me."

Arthur closed his briefcase with a sharp, decisive *SNAP*.

"I resign as your counsel, Daniel. And as an officer of the court, I have already turned over your private office files to the US Attorney's office." Arthur knocked twice on the heavy iron door. The guard slid the bolt open.

Arthur paused in the doorway, looking back at the broken man shivering in orange cotton.

"You should have just loved your wife, Daniel. She was the only person in this world who ever truly cared if you lived or died."