Two years after a sniper’s bullet stole the use of my legs, everyone inside my estate had learned to fear me—nurses quit, therapists fled, and even armed men lowered their eyes when I entered a room. Then a new maid named Emma walked into my private wing, looked straight at the man everyone called a monster, and said, “Do you want me to stop working? Because if I stop, I don’t get paid.”

The room fell into an immediate, heavy silence.

Emma stood up slowly, her binder dropping onto the leather seat behind her. "RICO? But you haven't... the past six months have been legal real estate transactions!"

"RICO doesn't care about the last six months, Emma," Luke said grimly, pulling a encrypted cell phone from his pocket. "It covers the last ten years. Someone fed the U.S. Attorney's office our old financial ledgers from the South Side operations in 2022."

I sat perfectly still in my chair, feeling the familiar, cold logic of crisis wash over me.

"Who signed the affidavit?" I asked Luke.

"Special Agent Miller," Luke replied. "And the state's star witness is listed under protective custody. They aren't releasing the name, but my source in the courthouse says it's someone from inside our inner circle."

I looked at the desk, my mind racing through the short list of men who had access to the 2022 ledgers. There were only three: me, Luke, and Marcus—the head of security who had been executed after the night of the blizzard.

"Marcus," I whispered. "He didn't just sell the gate code to Salvatore. He copied the vault drives before he died."

"The feds have been sitting on the data for six months," Luke agreed, nodding grimly. "They waited until you consolidated your power so they could take down the entire network in one sweep."

Outside, the heavy blare of a federal bullhorn echoed up the long driveway, cutting through the quiet morning.

"Danny Vance! This is the FBI! We have a warrant for your arrest! Open the gate and step out—or exit in your vehicle—with your hands visible!"

Emma stepped between my chair and the window, her face pale, her hands trembling as she grabbed the edge of my desk. "Danny... you can't go to federal prison. In your condition... with your spine... they won't give you the medical care you need. You won't survive five years in a maximum-security medical facility."

"I survived a sniper round, Emma," I said softly, reaching out to touch her hand. "A federal prison is just another cage."

"No," she said, her voice rising, a sharp, fierce flame igniting in her brown eyes. "You spent two years burying yourself in this house. You just finally came back to life. I am not letting them put you in a box."

She turned to Luke. "The tunnel under the wine cellar. Does it lead off the property?"

Luke blinked, startled by her tone. "It leads to the drainage culvert half a mile down the hill, near the old railway tracks. But the feds have helicopter coverage—"

"Not if the house is on fire," Emma said flatly.

I stared at her, stunned. "Emma, no—"

"Listen to me!" she yelled, leaning over my chair, her face inches from mine, her fingers digging into my shoulders. "They have a search warrant for the house and the grounds. If they find you here, you're done. But if the main wing goes up in smoke, if the security servers explode, their evidence burns, and you vanish into the storm system before they even set up a perimeter!"