THE SHADOW IN THE TRUST

"Touch him," Julian growled, stepping forward despite the gun pointed at his chest, "and I will tear this house down around your head."

"You won't do anything, Julian," Elena said calmly. "Because if you take one more step, I hit this switch."

She held up a small black transmitter in her left hand—the twin device to the one Victoria had used earlier in the day, but with a blue blinking light instead of red.

"This is wired to the estate's main gas lines," Elena explained, her voice steady and monotone. "In three minutes, a high-voltage spark will ignite the primary line in the basement. The entire east wing—including the nursery—will be reduced to ash. It will look like a tragic electrical fire caused by the storm. A grieving father, a fallen maid, a lost child. A tragic end to the Vance family legacy."

Weber let out a cruel, breathless laugh from the corner. "Poetic. I like it."

Julian stood frozen in the center of the study. His mind raced frantically, calculating distances, reaction times, and angles. He was fifteen feet away from Elena. The suppressed pistol in her hand could fire three rounds before he could close the gap. The gas transmitter was under her thumb.

"What do you want, Elena?" Julian asked, forcing his voice into a steady, negotiating tone to buy seconds. "You have the files. You have the trust money. What is it going to take for you to walk away and leave my son alive?"

"I already have what I want, Julian," Elena said, her thumb hovering over the blue button. "Sarah's research is worth fifty million dollars to European pharmaceutical conglomerates. The trust funds were just a bonus. But I can't leave witnesses. Not after Henrik compromised our timeline."

She raised her firearm to level directly between Julian’s eyes.

"Goodbye, Mr. Vance," Elena whispered.

Suddenly, a loud, high-pitched beep echoed from the hallway behind Julian.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

It was the distinct, electronic chime of the estate’s secondary child-safety lock system—a system Julian had installed himself six months ago, designed to alert his phone whenever Noah’s bedroom door was opened from the inside.