"THE BILLIONAIRE ORDERED HIS GUARDS TO SEIZE THE MAID AFTER HIS WIFE ACCUSED HER OF HURTING THE BABY—THEN HIS SEVEN-YEAR-OLD DAUGHTER SCREAMED, “SHE’S MY MOM!”

Vanessa Miller—formerly Vanessa Sterling—sat locked inside her private dressing suite on the second floor, her hands shaking so violently she could barely hold her crystal martini glass.

Her mind was racing at a frantic, psychotic pace.

How was Clara alive? How did she get back into the house? Where did she get that micro-SD card?

None of it made sense. Five years ago, Vanessa had paid off the local coroner, bribed the lead detective, and blackmailed Marcus Vance into silence. She had engineered the perfect coup—eliminating the lawful wife, stepping into the Whitmore manor, securing the billionaire heir, and positioning herself to inherit the entire estate through a carefully structured prenuptial trust that triggered automatically upon Adrian's "untimely retirement or incapacitation."

And now, in less than twenty minutes, her entire castle of cards had completely collapsed.

She walked over to her designer vanity, pulled open the hidden floorboard beneath her shoe rack, and grabbed a heavy leather zip-pouch stuffed with bearer bonds, two passports under alias names, and a diamond tennis bracelet worth half a million dollars.

She didn't care about Adrian anymore. She didn't care about the baby. She only cared about getting out of the country before federal marshals kicked her doors down.

Vanessa shoved the pouch into her Hermès Birkin bag, threw on her white fox-fur coat, and quietly unlocked her private side-exit door that led directly down the exterior spiral staircase to the gated service drive.

She turned the brass handle and pulled the door open.

Standing on the landing, blocking her only path of escape, was Miller. The ex-mercenary stood motionless in the freezing winter wind, his arms folded across his chest, a cold, humorless smirk playing on his lips.

"Going somewhere, Mrs. Whitmore?" Miller asked smoothly.

Vanessa’s face twisted into an ugly, snarling mask of panic. She reached into her handbag, her fingers wrapping around the cold steel grip of a snub-nosed .38 revolver she kept for emergencies. "Get out of my way, you glorified watchman! If you know what's good for you, you'll take this bag of cash and look the other way!"

Miller didn't blink. He didn't even reach for his own weapon.

"I wouldn't pull that piece out if I were you, ma'am," Miller warned, his voice dropping into a flat, dangerous register. "Mainly because the safety is still on, but more importantly, because the entire perimeter of this estate is currently locked down under federal warrant."

"Federal warrant?!" Vanessa shrieked, raising the pistol anyway with a trembling hand. "I’ll blow your head off—"

Before she could clear the leather pouch, a heavy shadow fell over the landing. A pair of strong, unforgiving hands grabbed Vanessa from behind, twisting her wrist upward with brutal, calculated efficiency.

Crack.

The revolver slipped from her numb fingers, clattering loudly against the metal steps before tumbling down to the concrete below.

Vanessa screamed in agony, thrashing against her captor, only to find herself shoved violently against the brick wall of the mansion. She looked up, expecting to see Adrian.