Lena stared at the photograph.

“He has her.”

Victor reached for the phone.

“You are not going alone.”

“He asked for me.”

“He wants the recording.”

“He wants me frightened enough to obey.”

Clara opened the rear door.

“Then we make him believe you are.”

Rosebridge’s second-floor corridor was empty when Lena entered.

She carried Nadia’s phone in one hand while a small earpiece rested beneath her hair.

Victor’s voice came through it.

“We are twenty feet behind you.”

Leon stepped from Margaret’s darkened room.

“Give me the phone.”

“Where is my mother?”

“Safe for the moment.”

Lena stopped beyond his reach.

“You forged the transfer, planted the vial, and tried to blame Clara.”

“You forgot the part where everyone believed me.”

“Only because you knew where to place the lies.”

Leon held out his hand.

“The phone.”

“Tell me why you did it.”

“Victor planned to remove me from Romano Holdings.

Clara’s marriage would have joined two fortunes, and I would have been left with nothing.”

“So you tried to kjll the man who trusted you.”

“I built half his empire.”

“You stole from the other half.”

Leon’s eyes narrowed.

“Victor told you?”

“No.

Your fear did.”

A door opened behind him.

Detective Ross entered with Margaret’s wheelchair.

“Your mother is comfortable,” Ross said.

“Sign a confession, and she stays that way.”

Margaret lifted her chin.

“Don’t sign anything, Lena.”

“Mama—”

“I raised you to tell the truth, not trade it for my bed.”

Leon placed a document on a medicine cart.

“Write that Clara hired you.

Say Nadia delivered the vial for her.”

Lena looked at the signature line.

“And you release my mother?”

“And pay for her care.”

“Lena, no,” Margaret said.

Leon pushed a pen toward her.

“Choose.”

Lena’s hand closed around it.

Victor whispered through the earpiece, “Do not sign.”

Detective Ross suddenly reached behind Lena’s ear and tore the device away.

“She isn’t alone,” he said.

Dmitri appeared at the far end of the corridor, but two officers blocked him.

Victor stood behind them, his hands visible.

Ross smiled.

“Interfering with an active investigation.

That gives me enough to hold all of you.”

Leon took Nadia’s phone from Lena and dropped it beneath his shoe.

The screen cracked.

“There goes your evidence.”

Lena set down the pen.

“No.

There goes a copy.”

Leon froze.

“Nadia uploaded the recording before we came.”

Ross gripped Lena’s arm.

“You’re under arrest for attempted murd3r.”

Margaret tried to rise.

“Take your hands off my daughter.”

Clara stepped from the stairwell with Nadia and the hotel manager.

Nadia held up another phone.

“The recording is already with the district attorney.”

Ross released Lena.

Leon backed toward Margaret’s wheelchair and seized its handles.

“Nobody moves.”

Lena stepped forward.

“Leave my mother out of this.”

“She became part of this when you refused my offer.”

Margaret drove her heel down on the wheelchair brake.

The chair stopped so sharply that Leon stumbled.

Dmitri moved, but Leon reached inside his jacket.

Victor raised a hand.

“Leon, don’t.”

Leon pulled out a flash drive instead.

“This contains every illegal order Victor Romano ever gave,” he said.

“If I fall, he falls first.”

Victor looked at Lena, then at the drive.

And for the first time that night, Victor said nothing.