I was raising my champagne glass when our maid burst into the ballroom, pale and shaking. “Don’t eat the cake!” she screamed. “She poisoned it!” Every head turned toward my billionaire father’s fiancée, whose perfect smile instantly vanished. She pointed at the maid. “She’s lying!” I quietly set down my fork and pulled out my phone. “Funny,” I said. “Because I recorded what you put in it.” And that was only the beginning of my revenge.

The heavy explosive charge buried beneath the cellar threshold detonated with a concussive blast that threw Marcus and me backward across the stone floor.

Concrete dust and pulverized limestone erupted in a choking gray cloud. The deafening ringing in my ears drowned out everything for three agonizing seconds. Coughing through the acrid stench of cordite, I scrambled to my feet, my vision swimming.

Nikolai had vanished into the eastern service tunnels beneath the foundation.

"Dad!" I screamed, lunging through the burning rubble of the cellar entrance.

The heavy steel security door hung off its hydraulic hinges, bent outward like tinfoil. Inside the wine vault, the ambient temperature was rising rapidly; a severed electrical conduit was sparking against a ruptured gas line running along the northern wall.

"Evelyn... over here!"

Maria’s voice came from beneath an overturned oak tasting table in the far corner. I rushed across the shattered vintage bottles, red wine pooling around my boots like freshly spilled blood.

My father was slumped against the brick wall, his face ashen, clutching his left arm. Maria was kneeling beside him, pressing a blood-soaked linen napkin to a deep gash on his temple.

"Dad!" I fell to my knees, throwing my arms around him, feeling the rapid, erratic pounding of his heart through his woolen sweater.

"Evelyn... he... he wanted the foundation offshore keys," my father rasped, his voice trembling with shock and pain. "He had a retinal scanner... he tried to force my eyes open to authorize the international transfer..."

"Did he get it?" I asked, inspecting the wound on his head.

"No," Arthur Ashford whispered, a faint, defiant spark flickering in his tired eyes. "I smashed the terminal against the stone floor before he could align the lens. That's when he threw the charge."

"We have to get out of here right now!" Marcus shouted from the doorway, his gun drawn, scanning the corridor. "The gas line is compromised. The entire lower level will ignite in two minutes!"

Together, Maria and Marcus hoisted my father between their shoulders. I took point, clearing each threshold with my weapon raised, adrenaline burning through my bloodstream like pure fire. We burst through the kitchen exit out into the pouring rain just as an orange fireball blew out the stained-glass windows of the lower terrace, showering the flagstones in flaming debris.

Paramedics and state police cruisers, sirens howling like banshees, finally flooded the estate grounds, their flashing red and blue lights painting the burning mansion in violent hues.

As the paramedics rushed my father into an emergency ambulance, Detective Cole pulled up in an unmarked sedan, slamming the door.

"Nikolai escaped on a customized high-speed rib boat parked in your private cove," Cole said, breathless. "He made it into the Long Island Sound before Coast Guard interceptors could lock his coordinates."

"He didn't get the money," I said, watching the flames lick the historical brick of my family home.

"No, he didn't," Cole agreed darkly. "Which means he has nothing left to lose. And an operative like Nikolai Vance with nothing left to lose is ten times more dangerous than Victoria ever was."

I looked down at my phone. A text message from an unknown encrypted number arrived:

*You saved his body tonight, Evelyn. But tomorrow, I dismantle his name. Check the morning market opening.*