Daniel Ended His Wedding After Vanessa Humiliated Emily, Then One Guest’s Recording Revealed Why His Sister Had Been Targeted Earlier

One hundred and twenty feet beneath the roaring asphalt of Fifth Avenue, ancient history lay entombed in darkness.

The air inside the subterranean catacombs smelled of damp limestone, sulfur, and eighty years of forgotten secrets. Daniel and Emily moved through the narrow granite corridor, their tactical weapon lights cutting through the thick, swirling dust motes.

The passage opened into a massive, octagonal chamber built of solid cyclopean granite blocks, reinforced with rusted steel girders dating back to the turn of the twentieth century.

In the center of the chamber stood the Vault of Judas.

It was an enormous, ten-foot-tall circular door of solid cast bronze, green with age and verdigris, its face carved with the elaborate, intertwined crests of the Sterling and Vance families—two predatory lions devouring an eagle.

The heavy door was already ajar. The massive, hand-cranked locking bolts had been sheared through with industrial hydraulic cutters.

Daniel signaled for Emily to hold her position, his pistol raised, sweeping the cavernous entrance. He stepped through the heavy threshold, his boots making no sound on the ancient stone floor.

The interior of the vault was lined with thousands of small, brass safety-deposit boxes. But in the center of the room, illuminated by a solitary, battery-powered work lamp resting on the floor, was a high-backed leather wing chair.

Sitting in the chair was Vanessa Vance.

She was not armed. She was not screaming.

She was tied to the chair with heavy industrial wire, her pristine ivory suit shredded and soaked in dark, drying blood. Her face was battered beyond recognition, her breathing shallow and rattling in her chest.

"Vanessa!" Emily gasped, rushing forward despite Daniel’s outstretched arm.

"Emily... no..." Vanessa wheezed, blood bubbling on her split lips as she looked up with swollen, terror-filled eyes. "It’s... it’s a wire... don't step..."

Daniel tackled Emily to the ground an instant before her foot could trip a monofilament tripwire stretched six inches above the stone floor.

They rolled onto the cold stone as Vanessa began to weep—a broken, pathetic sound from a woman who had once ruled New York high society with an iron fist.

"He... he took them," Vanessa sobbed, her tears washing pale tracks through the blood on her face. "He took the bearer bonds... he left me here... to die with you."

"Where is he, Vanessa?" Daniel demanded, rising to a crouch, his weapon scanning the shadows of the subterranean chamber. "Where did Richard go?"

"The rooftop..." Vanessa choked out, coughing violently. "The gala... at the Metropolitan Club... eighty-fifth floor of the Sterling Grand Hotel... he’s going to execute the board... live on television... with the bonds in his hands..."

Vanessa’s head lolled backward, her strength failing. "He never loved me, Emily... he never loved either of us... we were just... chess pieces... to prove he was smarter than Arthur..."

Daniel inspected the mechanism beneath Vanessa’s chair. It was an improvised C4 explosive block wired directly to an electronic pressure sensor beneath the seat. If Vanessa stood up, the entire vault would collapse into a subterranean inferno.

"Can you disarm it?" Emily asked, her voice tight with urgency.

Daniel examined the wires, his tactical knowledge assessing the fail-safes. "Not without thirty minutes and an EOD kit. It’s on a secondary countdown timer. We have twelve minutes before the clock hits zero."

Emily looked at Vanessa—the woman who had humiliated her, the woman who had tried to have her assassinated in the conservatory, the sister who had hated her from the moment of her birth.

"We can't leave her," Emily whispered.

"Emily, she tried to murder you," Daniel said, his voice flat.

"If we leave her here to die in the dark, then Richard Vance wins," Emily said, looking Daniel dead in the eye. "He turns us into him. Cut the secondary detonator lead. Bypass the battery with your knife."

Daniel looked at his sister for three agonizing seconds. Then, without a word, he pulled his tactical blade, wedged the insulated steel spine beneath the circuit board of the C4 block, and sliced the primary bridge.

The red digital countdown on the explosive display flickered once... and went black.

Vanessa let out a long, shuddering gasp of relief, slumping unconscious against the wire restraints.

"She’s secure," Daniel said, standing up and checking his watch. "The gala at the Sterling Grand started fifteen minutes ago. The board of directors, the foreign investors, the Mayor—they’re all trapped in the sky."