The day I buried my father, I called my husband and asked for a divorce. Ethan Blackwood laughed and said, “Go ahead, Claire. Let’s see how you pay your father’s hospital bills without my money.” I didn’t tell him my father was already dead—or that while Ethan was vacationing in Miami Beach with another woman, I had signed my father’s death certificate alone.

The Bainbridge estate was a fortress of glass, steel, and Douglas fir, perched on a cliff overlooking the dark waters of Puget Sound. Heavy electronic gates clicked shut behind the armored Mercedes, and armed guards in tactical gear took positions along the tree line.

Inside the sprawling living room, Claire paced before a roaring stone fireplace. The fire crackled and cast dancing shadows across the room, but she felt entirely numb.

“Vanessa,” Claire said, turning sharply toward Ethan, who stood near the window with a fresh black shirt unbuttoned at the collar. “You knew Vanessa went to my father’s house?”

“Not until yesterday,” Ethan said, his voice laced with venom. “When Marcus told me Arthur was dead, I went through every security feed, every call log from the last three months. I interrogated Vanessa’s driver myself before I boarded the jet.”

He walked over to the table and tossed a thumb drive next to the ledger.

“She threatened him, Claire. She told Arthur that if he didn't hand over key 409, Dominic would tell the Chicago press that Arthur Bennett had been laundering Mafia money for twenty years. She told him his reputation would be dragged through the mud, and that you would end up in a federal penitentiary as an accessory.”

Claire swallowed hard. Her father had prided himself on his integrity, despite the dangerous world he had been pulled into. But more than that, Arthur had loved her more than life itself.

To hear that Vanessa Monroe had stood over a dying old man, weaponizing his daughter’s future to induce a fatal heart attack… it made the grief inside Claire harden into pure, unadulterated steel.

“And you were with her,” Claire said, her voice dropping into a register so cold it startled Ethan. “While my father was dying from the stress she caused him, you were taking her to Miami.”

Ethan closed his eyes, taking the hit like a blow to the solar plexus. “I didn't know about Dominic. I thought Vanessa was just… an old habit. An easy distraction when you and I were fighting. I was a blind, arrogant fool, Claire. I let a viper sleep in my bed while she poisoned the only family you had left.”

He stepped forward, falling to one knee before her chair—a posture no living soul had ever seen Ethan Blackwood adopt.

He looked up at her, his eyes raw with an emotion she had begged to see for two years.

“I don’t expect you to take me back,” Ethan said, his voice shaking. “I don’t expect you to forgive me. You can take the divorce. You can take half of everything I own—the casinos, the hotels, the bank accounts. But let me destroy Dominic and Vanessa first. Let me avenge your father. Then, if you still want me to disappear from your life, I swear to you… you will never see my face again.”

Claire looked down at the Chicago kingpin kneeling at her feet.

Two years ago, she would have wept with joy to see Ethan Blackwood this vulnerable. She would have wrapped her arms around him and offered him comfort.

Now, she felt no desire to comfort him.

She reached down, took her father’s brass watch from her pocket, and clicked open the back. She pulled out the micro-SD card and placed it directly into the velvet compartment alongside key 409.

“You’re not going to destroy them alone, Ethan,” Claire said, her voice steady and clear.

Ethan frowned, looking up at her. “Claire, this is mob business. It’s blood work. You’re a civilian—”

“My father died because of your mob business!” she snapped, leaning down until her face was inches from his. “Arthur Bennett wasn’t a mobster, but he spent thirty years taking your family’s dirty money and turning it into clean ledgers. I grew up watching him decode offshore wire transfers. I know how Dominic’s shell companies work better than you do.”

She stood up, tall and unyielding.

“We aren't going to shoot Dominic in an alley so he can become a martyr for the Chicago Outfit. We are going to strip him of his money, expose his murder of your brother to the Five Families, and leave Vanessa Monroe with nothing but an orange jumpsuit.”

Ethan stared at her. For the first time in their marriage, he wasn't looking at the shy, quiet girl who begged him to stay home for dinner.

He was looking at the daughter of Arthur Bennett—a woman who held the match that could burn down an entire criminal dynasty.

“What’s the play?” Ethan asked, rising to his feet.

Claire picked up the ledger and locked it shut.