Everyone watched Victoria raise her hand against a helpless elderly woman, but only one waitress dared to stop her—and seconds later, Chicago’s most powerful billionaire walked straight toward them.

"You're late, Evelyn," Vincent said. His voice was steady, but there was an abyssal chill beneath the words that made the armed guards tense their triggers.

Evelyn walked slowly into the vault, her leather boots clicking rhythmically against the stone floor. She ignored the guards and looked directly at the titanium box on the pedestal.

"Your father was a sentimental fool, Vincent," Evelyn said, gesturing with the barrel of her revolver toward the letter in Vincent’s hand. "He thought blood meant loyalty. He thought justice was something that could be preserved in an iron box beneath the rust of Indiana. But the world doesn't run on justice. It runs on ledgers. Debts paid, debts collected."

"You killed my mother," Vincent said, taking a half-step forward, his eyes locking onto Evelyn’s face. "The accident thirty years ago. It wasn't my father you were trying to kill first. It was her."

Evelyn didn't deny it. A faint, aristocratic smile touched her lips. "She discovered where the offshore funds were flowing. She wanted to go to the federal prosecutors. She forgot that the Moretti name was built with my family’s blood money. I simply corrected an administrative error."

Her gaze shifted away from Vincent, landing sharply upon Emma.

"And you," Evelyn said, studying Emma with predatory disgust. "The little stray from the banquet. The waitress who dared to grab Victoria Sterling’s wrist. Do you know how much money the House of Sterling owed me, girl? Millions. And because of your interference, the entire network collapsed into the light."

Emma stood tall, refusing to shrink back. "Victoria was a coward. Marcus Vance was a coward. And you're just an old monster hiding behind snipers."

One of the guards stepped forward to strike Emma with the butt of his rifle, but Vincent moved like lightning.

Before the guard could raise his weapon, Vincent grabbed the contractor’s wrist, twisting it violently until the bone snapped through the skin with an audible crack. He ripped the combat knife from the guard's vest and drove it upward under the jaw, dropping the man instantly as a human shield.