“WHO WILL HE BELIEVE—ME OR A CHEAP BABYSITTER?”—A Wealthy Man’s Fiancée Threw His 3-Year-Old Daughter Onto the Grass and Blamed the Nanny, Never Knowing He Had Witnessed Everything! Moments Later, She Fell Into the Swimming Pool—And the Sound of POLICE SIRENS Made Her Panic...

Ethan approached his ground-floor office like smoke through an open window.

The heavy oak doors were pulled to a crack. Inside, the soft clicking of a safe combination lock being dialed echoed in the quiet room.

Ethan pushed the door open with the toe of his shoe, his gun raised, silencer leveled at the back of the intruder’s skull.

The man standing in front of the wall safe didn't flinch. He didn't drop his hands. He wore an immaculate bespoke suit, charcoal gray with a silk lavender tie. He slowly turned his head, a silver cigarette case gleaming in his left hand.

It was Marcus Reid.

"You always were faster than your father, Ethan," Marcus said smoothly, as if they were meeting over scotch at the Manhattan Union League. "I figured I had another fifteen minutes before you made it back from Danbury."

"You killed Miller," Ethan said, his voice dropping into a deadly, guttural register. "You sent the hit team to Danbury to butcher Vanessa before she could name you."

"Vanessa was a hysterical idiot who panicked the second she saw a rifle scope in the garden three years ago," Marcus sighed, taking out a silver lighter and sparking a flame. "She was supposed to quietly slip digitalis into Sophie's milk over six months. Make it look like sudden childhood cardiomyopathy. But she lost her nerve, got sloppy, threw the kid by the pool, and let your damn nanny play the hero on national news."

Ethan’s finger tightened on the trigger until the slack was entirely gone. "Caroline knew. That’s why you cut her brake lines."

Marcus took a slow drag of his cigarette, his eyes cold and devoid of human empathy. "Caroline was too damn curious for her own good. She started digging into the offshore accounts of the Hawthorne Foundation. She found out that your father never intended for you to inherit the syndicate alone. We built this empire together, Ethan! My father bled in the docks so your family could sit in ivory towers! And then your father writes a will stating that if you die without a direct heir, the entire four-billion-dollar trust rolls over to the board of directors—which I control."

"And if Sophie dies," Ethan whispered, understanding the full, horrifying scope of the conspiracy, "the Hawthorne line ends with me."

"Precisely," Marcus smiled, a cold, reptile grin. "You die in a grief-stricken suicide, or a tragic revenge shooting, and I take the entire empire legally. Clean. Untouchable."

"You forgot one thing, Marcus," Ethan said, his voice deathly still.

Marcus smirked. "And what’s that, boy?"

"You're standing in my house."

Before Marcus could reach for the concealed automatic under his jacket, Ethan fired.

The suppressed round shattered Marcus’s right kneecap. The consigliere let out a blood-curdling scream and collapsed onto the hardwood floor, clutching his ruined joint, writhing in agony.

Ethan walked over, kicked the gun away from Marcus’s flailing reach, and planted his heavy boot directly onto the shattered knee, pressing down with calculated, brutal precision.

"Ahhh! God! Ethan, wait! Wait!" Marcus shrieked, tears and sweat instantly drenching his face.

"Where is the master key to the Zurich vault?" Ethan asked softly, pressing harder. "The one Caroline hid?"

"I don't have it! I swear to God, Ethan, I don't have it!" Marcus wailed, clawing at Ethan’s trousers. "Someone took it from Rhode Island before my men got there last night!"